San Sebastián — Pintxos, History & the Bay

Step inside if the doors are open. The nave stretches sixty-four meters long and rises twenty-five meters to the vaulted ceiling. But here's the showstopper: the organ. It's one of the largest in Europe, with five keyboards and nine thousand five hundred and thirty-five pipes. The biggest pipe is ten meters tall. When this thing plays, you feel it in your chest.

By the way, the cathedral only became a cathedral in nineteen fifty-three. Before that, it was just a parish church. The diocese of San Sebastian was created that year, and this church got the promotion.

Look around you. This area is the Ensanche -- the planned expansion of the city that was built after the old medieval walls were torn down. The grid of wide, elegant streets you see was designed in the eighteen-sixties, modeled on Paris. It's all Belle Epoque grandeur, wrought-iron balconies, and fancy facades.

When you're ready, head north toward the Old Town. Walk down Calle Loyola and then turn right onto Calle Fermin Calbet-on. You'll know you've arrived when the streets get narrow, the buildings get older, and the smell of food gets incredible. We're heading to the birthplace of the most famous bite in the Basque Country.

Now, why is it called gilda? That same year, Rita Hayworth starred in the film Gilda, and she was the talk of the town. Txepetxa thought his little creation was just like the character Rita played -- green, salty, and a little bit spicy. The name stuck.

Before the gilda, Basque bars served simple things. Olives in a bowl. Some cheese on a plate. But the gilda introduced this idea of combining ingredients on a toothpick, making each bite a composed dish in miniature. And from that moment, the pintxo -- from the Spanish word pinchar, to pierce -- was born. Every elaborate, beautiful, architectural pintxo you'll see in this city traces its DNA back to this bar, this toothpick, this slightly tipsy man in nineteen forty-six.

Order a gilda here. You have to. It's a pilgrimage. The combination of the briny anchovy, the sharp pickled pepper, and the fat green olive is perfect. Wash it down with a txakoli -- that's the local white wine they pour from a height to give it a little fizz.

By the way, San Sebastian has more Michelin stars per square meter than almost anywhere on earth. This tiny city of under two hundred thousand people has a dozen Michelin-starred restaurants. And it all started with a man, a toothpick, and an olive.

When you're ready, walk about fifty meters further up the street and turn left. You'll emerge into a wide, colorful square. That's the Plaza de la Constitucion.

The numbered balconies survive as one of those beautiful, slightly weird historical details that make a city interesting. Bullfighting moved to a purpose-built ring when they built the Plaza de Toros, but nobody bothered to repaint the numbers. And now they're a protected feature.

The square was designed in eighteen seventeen by the architect Silvestre Perez, as part of the reconstruction after the devastating fire of eighteen thirteen -- which we'll talk about at our next stop. The design is neoclassical, with uniform facades and covered arcades, very much in the tradition of grand Spanish plazas like the ones in Madrid and Salamanca.

Today, this is where San Sebastian celebrates. On January twentieth, the entire city gathers here for the Tamborrada, a twenty-four-hour drumming festival that marks the feast of San Sebastian. Thousands of people in military and chef costumes march through the streets beating drums from midnight to midnight. It's gloriously loud, wonderfully chaotic, and uniquely Basque.

If you want a coffee, grab one at one of the cafes under the arcades. Then head out of the square to the northeast. We're walking to the street that survived the apocalypse.

Every building. Every church. Every home. Reduced to ash and rubble. Out of seven thousand inhabitants, around three thousand five hundred survived.

Every building except this street. The Anglo-Portuguese troops spared this one street because they were using it as their own shelter. So the houses you see here, with their old stone facades and wooden beams, are the oldest buildings in the city. Everything else in the Parte Vieja -- the Old Town -- was rebuilt after eighteen thirteen. But this street is the real thing.

The street was originally called Calle Trinidad. After the fire, it was renamed to make sure nobody forgot what happened on that August day. Walk slowly down it. Look at the stonework. Touch the walls. These stones remember things the rest of the city has forgotten.

By the way, if you look up, you'll notice that the buildings lean slightly inward. That's not earthquake damage -- it's deliberate. In the Middle Ages, upper floors were built wider than lower floors to gain more living space. The overhang also kept rain off the street. Clever, if a little claustrophobic.

At the end of the street, look ahead. You'll see the elaborate baroque facade of a church rising above the rooftops. That's our next stop.

Here's a remarkable detail: when the rest of the Old Town burned in eighteen thirteen, this church survived. While everything around it was reduced to rubble, Santa Maria stood. Whether that was luck, divine intervention, or just good stone construction, locals have their own opinions.

Step inside if you can. The interior is much more restrained than the facade -- a single nave with a baroque altarpiece. It's the kind of contrast that tells you something about Basque character. The exterior shouts. The interior whispers.

The name del Coro means of the Choir. This was one of two main churches in the old city -- Santa Maria and San Vicente -- and each had its own devoted following. For centuries, the two parishes were fierce rivals. Marriages between families from different parishes were controversial. Imagine that -- a city so small you can walk across it in ten minutes, divided by church loyalty.

By the way, look at the street you're standing on. This is the foot of Monte Urgull, the hill that dominates the Old Town. We'll get closer to it later. For now, head east along Calle treinta y uno de Agosto. In about two hundred meters, on your right, you'll see the weathered stone walls of a former monastery. That's San Telmo.

Then came eighteen thirteen. The fire that destroyed the city badly damaged the monastery too. After the Spanish government confiscated church property in the eighteen thirties, the Dominicans were expelled and the building became military barracks. Imagine monks' cells turned into soldiers' bunks, the cloister garden turned into a drill ground. It stayed that way for decades.

In nineteen twenty-nine, the city bought the complex, and by nineteen thirty-two it reopened as a museum of Basque ethnography and history. But the most dramatic change came in twenty eleven, when a stunning modern extension was added. The architects Nieto Sobejano designed a new wing clad in perforated aluminum panels that looks almost like scales -- or maybe like the hills behind it. Old monastery, new metal. It shouldn't work, but it absolutely does.

Inside, the museum traces Basque society from prehistoric times to today. There's everything from medieval gravestones to contemporary Basque art. The highlight is the former church, where the walls are covered in enormous murals by the Catalan artist Jose Maria Sert, painted in the nineteen thirties, depicting scenes from Basque life and history in rich golds and blacks.

When you're ready, exit the museum and head south on Calle treinta y uno de Agosto, then turn right toward the Boulevard. You'll see the modern entrance to the Bretxa market ahead.

Head downstairs to the lower level. This is where the magic happens. The fish counter is extraordinary -- look at the variety of seafood from the Bay of Biscay. Whole turbot, glistening anchovies, spider crabs the size of dinner plates. The fishmongers here supply some of those Michelin-starred restaurants we talked about. Every serious chef in San Sebastian starts their morning at this market.

Here's what to try. First, Idiazabal cheese -- a smoked sheep's milk cheese that's been made in the Basque hills for centuries. It's nutty, smoky, with a slight tang. Second, Cantabrian anchovies. These are nothing like the sad, salty strips you get on pizza. They're plump, silky, almost sweet. Third, if you see dried guindilla peppers, grab some. They're the pepper used in the gilda.

And if you're hungry now, several stalls sell prepared food. Get a slice of Basque cheesecake -- tarta de queso -- which is burnt on top, creamy in the middle, and nothing like any cheesecake you've had before.

When you're done browsing, head back outside and walk west through the Old Town streets. We're going to talk about one of the most fascinating cultural traditions in the Basque Country -- the secret cooking clubs.

The oldest surviving txoko is the Union Artesana, founded right here in San Sebastian in eighteen seventy. But the tradition goes back further. When industrialization brought workers from rural villages into the city in the mid-eighteen hundreds, the bars started imposing curfews to stop people drinking too late. The workers' response? We'll just build our own kitchens, thank you very much. And the txoko was born.

There are about a hundred and fifteen txokos in San Sebastian alone. Some have only twenty members. Others have hundreds. Historically, most were men-only -- women weren't allowed in until relatively recently. That exclusion is controversial and has been widely criticized, though most societies are now mixed.

But here's the detail that really gets me. Under Francisco Franco's dictatorship, when Basque language and culture were brutally suppressed, the txokos were one of the few places where people could speak Basque, sing Basque songs, and keep their culture alive. Behind closed doors, over simmering pots of marmitako and bacalao, the Basque identity survived.

And one more thing: the mayor of San Sebastian is required to dine at every single txoko in the city at least once a year. That's seventy-five dinners. Not a bad job, honestly.

From here, continue west through the Old Town toward the port. You'll start to see the harbor and smell the sea. We're heading to the waterfront.

Now, the Aquarium. It was inaugurated on September first, nineteen twenty-eight, by King Alfonso the Thirteenth and Queen Victoria Eugenia, making it one of the oldest aquariums in Europe and the first natural science museum in Spain. Inside, there's a treasure: the skeleton of a North Atlantic right whale, captured off the coast between Zarautz and Getaria in eighteen seventy-eight. It's been hanging in the main hall since nineteen thirty-four. Twelve meters long, and it represents the last great whale hunted in these waters.

And that brings us to a story most people don't know. The Basques were some of the first commercial whalers in history. From the Middle Ages onward, Basque fishermen hunted right whales in the Bay of Biscay. They were so good at it that by the fifteen hundreds, the whales had become scarce locally, so the Basques sailed all the way to Newfoundland and Labrador to find more. They called the whale the pig of the sea because every part of it was used -- meat, blubber, bone, oil. Basque whaling stations have been found as far away as Red Bay in Canada, dating to the fifteen forties.

Now, turn and face the bay. That sweeping crescent of sand and blue water is La Concha -- the Shell -- and the promenade running along it is where we're headed. Follow the waterfront west.

Here's a detail that locals love. One section of the railing was installed backwards. Instead of the decorative flower facing the promenade and the pedestrians, it faces the sea. Nobody knows if it was a mistake or deliberate, but it's become a thing -- finding the reversed section is a little local game.

In nineteen ninety-nine, the entire railing was in such poor condition that the city dismantled all two hundred and seventy-one sections, restored each one individually, and reinstalled them. The railing had become so iconic that letting it rust away was unthinkable.

This promenade was the catwalk of Belle Epoque Europe. In the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, when Queen Regent Maria Cristina made San Sebastian the summer capital of Spain, European aristocrats flocked here. They would stroll along this exact path in their finest clothes, see and be seen, gossip and flirt against this ridiculous backdrop.

Imagine it. Horse-drawn carriages on the road behind you. Ladies with parasols and enormous hats. Gentlemen in white linen suits. The beach below dotted with changing huts because showing skin was scandalous. And across the bay, the same view you're seeing right now. Some things don't change.

Keep walking west along the promenade. The beach beside you transitions from La Concha to Ondarreta. At the western end, where the rocks meet the sea, you'll find three sculptures that are among the most photographed works of art in Spain.

Chillida worked with the architect Luis Pena Ganchegui, who designed the pink granite terraces and the viewing platforms you're standing on. Look at the ground. See those holes in the stone? When big waves hit, seawater is forced through underground channels and erupts through these blowholes in great geysers of spray. It's not a malfunction -- it's part of the design. The sculptures are meant to interact with the elements. Wind, water, stone, steel. Chillida wanted to create a place where art and nature became inseparable.

Come here at sunset if you can. Or better yet, come during a winter storm, when the Atlantic sends ten-meter waves crashing into the rocks and the blowholes shoot water twenty feet into the air. The sculptures disappear and reappear in the spray. It's terrifying and magnificent.

Chillida died in two thousand and two, but his spirit is all over this city. The Chillida Leku museum, in the hills outside town, is his former farmhouse surrounded by his monumental sculptures in a beech forest. If you have time, it's unmissable.

Now, look behind you and slightly uphill. See the funicular railway track climbing the hillside? That's our final stop, and the view from the top is going to make your jaw drop. Head to the base station -- it's just a couple of minutes up the road.

This is, without exaggeration, one of the greatest city views in Europe. The entire bay of La Concha spreads out below you in a perfect crescent. The beach gleams. The island of Santa Clara floats in the center. Monte Urgull rises at the far end, with the Sacred Heart statue just visible. Behind it, the mountains of the Basque Country roll into the distance. And below, the city -- white buildings, terra cotta roofs, church spires -- nestles into the landscape like it grew there naturally.

Imagine the people who've stood in this exact spot. Queen Maria Cristina, who fell so in love with San Sebastian that she made it the summer capital of Spain. Ernest Hemingway, who came here in the nineteen twenties and would later write about the running of the bulls in Pamplona, just ninety kilometers to the south. Coco Chanel, who reportedly got her first suntan on La Concha beach below, scandalizing polite society and accidentally launching a fashion trend that changed Western beauty standards forever.

By the way, there's a charmingly old-fashioned amusement park up here. It's been running since the early twentieth century, and it has a wooden roller coaster that is -- how to put this -- rustic. It rattles, it creaks, and the views from the top are terrifying. In the best possible way. If you have kids with you, or if you're a kid at heart, take a ride.

And that's our tour. You've walked through a city that burns, rebuilds, and keeps eating. A city where a man with a toothpick invented a food tradition that defines an entire culture. Where secret cooking clubs preserved a language during a dictatorship. Where the world's greatest sculptor embedded his life's work into the rocks of his hometown.

If you're hungry -- and you should be -- head back down the funicular, walk to the Old Town, and go on a pintxo crawl. Bar hop along Calle Fermin Calbet-on and Calle treinta y uno de Agosto. Order a gilda at Casa Valles, a slice of tortilla at Bar Nestor, txuleta at Gandarias, and whatever looks good on every bar you pass. Point at things. Try everything. This city was made for eating.

Thanks for walking with me. Eskerrik asko -- that's thank you in Basque. Enjoy San Sebastian.