Côtes ridic

Before we went to Nice we decided to go through Cannes. This was a mistake, there was no film festival on yet we couldn't find a park and it looked like a European version of Malibu in California. If you haven't been to Malibu, well Courtney Love did a song about it, nuff said. After getting out of Cannes through the traffic lights every 100m we arrived in Nice, checked into our hotel and they gave us the choice of rooms with a key to both to inspect. One was on the second floor and the other on the fifth floor was basically a trapezoid room with the only window being to the roof slope. I opened the window/sun light/trapdoor and was immediately surrounded by 50 degree heat from clay roof tiles being baking in the 30 degree weather all day, so we opted for the 2nd level room.

We went for a walk down the main avenue where there's trams running up and a lot of the fancy labelled shops, also there's a lot of cafes and bars which is quite perfect for us. We had a rose de Provence about halfway and then headed down to the beach. After walking around for a while we realised that it was too hot to do anything other than cain some wines right on the beach. These were more than we expected to pay and were similar to the prices of our local Sydney pubs, lah didah. P.S. with the dollar the way it is Europe is the new south east Asia.

The bar we were at was right on the beach and had a DJ playing some chill beats so we stayed there for quite a while. This bar was completely amazing, so close to the water and good music! Nice is apparently one of the first human settlements and you can tell. They realised they have come the the point of advancement in society where they think having wine by the sea just needs to be done. There was also a bucks party going on with some dudes speaking English but with all different accents which was pretty hilarious to watch after they ordered their fourth bottle of Tattinger champagne as most of the fourth and fifth bottle was ending up on the ground. Afterwards we just grabbed a burger for dinner at a local greasery which had the Olympics action on the big screen.

Heidi enjoying the beach side beats

The next day we went for a swim on the pebbled beach. I will say this: Australia has better beaches, but there doesn't seem to be anyone selling watermelon and rose on them close to the water? This is a big tick for the French beaches. Anyway we went to another one of the beach bars and had some watermelon and rose for lunch. I went for another swim as the same old dumb azure coloured water was literally 15 meters from where we were sitting.

Not this water again

We walked back home and did some blogging then went shopping for a while. After these strenuous activities we figured we'd earned some more rose by the beach. Also in case you're wondering why we were caining so much rose, the rose from Provence (which is nearby the Côtes de Azur) is something else. It doesn't taste like Ribena juice like most of the ones I've tried in Australia. They taste similar to a white but with slight berry flavours and are super awesome when it's hot. So we journeyed back to Plage Beau Rivage in search of lounge beats and another bottle of rose de Provence. Life was super hard watching the sun dip down into the water. The bucks party was also back there caining Tattinger again.

For dinner we went in search of some moules as we figured the seafood would be good here. Unfortunately we went to the tourist trap section one street back from the beach near the old town. The mussels were great but it cost more than it should have.

Last day in Nice we went for a drive to see the Principality of Monaco. It was a pretty good drive and was well signed and easy to navigate to the tourist information spot. We got there and walked around the main casino which had about every recent luxury car brand you could name and a few vintage ones parked nearby. It was a Sunday so it didn't seem like there was too much open in the way of shops. We were after a coffee and a petite dejuner but we could only see restaurants with names like "Billionaires" bar attached to the local Fairmont hotel there didn't seem to be anything in the way of a small cafe.

We gave up on this area and reparked near the Palace. Unfortunately we just missed the changing of the guards so we gave up on that and got some sandwiches from a cheap cafe. We walked around to the Palace past the marina with the ridiculous boats and had a look around but it seemed pretty boring besides the statue of a massive baby breakdancing and we were over the bourgeouis by this stage as we weren't a part of any of it.

Massive break dancing baby doing a freeze.

Pretty cool they decided to build this on the side of a cliff in Monaco.

It was nice of them to build some statues of us
with our guts in proportion to our heads for this trip

We decided to go home past Eze as the first time we went past we couldn't get a park. It's this tiny village on the top of a mountain between Monaco and Nice. Unfortunately it was just as packed out as when we went past in the morning. We cut our losses and parked the car in the hotel carpark space which you have to fold the rear view mirrors in to get into. I should have said we had a 4WD because you get an easier parking space that way.

We went back to another beach bar which luckily had watermelon and rose to console ourselves with as our favourite bar with the beats was packed out by this time. I tried to go for another swim but when I went to rent a towel the lady said it was 5 euro for the towel and 6 euro for a swim since I was only at the lounge bar and hadn't paid for a lie low. I was tempted to tell her I was going to just take her dumb towel and go for a swim 50m down the beach where its free but decided against it and went back to drinking the rose with Heidi and go for a swim later. For dinner we went back to the burger joint with the massive TV for Olympics watching.

Watermelon and rose by the sea, just need some fried chicken for perfection.

In summary Nice should be renamed to Extremely Nice or whatever the Frenchy equivalent would be. It wasn't the cheapest place but definitely was one of the loveliest especially the beach area and I would go back there in a second.

In fact I left my doppleganger there I loved it so much.

Nothing Toulouse except a night in Montpellier

Wednesday August 8 I woke up pleasantly surprised to see that Ryan was still breathing despite his foie gras intake the day before. We packed up our things and waved a fond farewell to Bordeaux, and hit the road for Toulouse. We wanted to break up the drive to the French Riviera so planned for 1 night in Toulouse and 1 night in Montpellier. All the hotels I've booked so far have turned out to be pretty good, but the day before we left for Toulouse I looked up the hotel address and realised I'd royally fudged it up (it was a chain, and I obviously booked the wrong one), and so we were staying out near an airport and space museum. D'oh!

Out in the sticks in Toulouse

No worries, we got to the main part of Toulouse early afternoon and had some lunch. For some reason Ryan chose Vietnamese (despite his mate telling him don't bother unless you're in Paris). Anyway, Ryan had the most disappointing pho in his life, and I had a pretty ordinary beef salad, but it was nice to have some greens! We wandered around Toulouse a bit, but from where we parked the car we couldn't really find the old town and it was getting pretty hot, so we both agreed that Toulouse was a bit of a travel fail and we'd just bunker down for a quiet evening in our hotel out in the sticks (which actually was very comfortable - recently renovated with the best bed and shower I think we've had!). Anyway, we got to catch up on emails and blogging and watch some Olympics. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant as well - I'm not sure why so many people were there - it must be a good stop-off point for business people or something. Anyway, I had the buffet (purely because I could see vegetables) and Ryan had another disappointing chicken dish. Lucky we could wash it all down with some of our favourite rose from Provence. Funny night.

The city walls of Carcassonne

The next morning we woke fairly early and well rested! I even got up and went for a brisk walk/jog which I have started to do every few days to try and slow down the inevitable weight gain! We checked out and drove to Carcassonne, a billion year old fortified city (built by the Romans) perched up on a hill. We had an early lunch of crepes at a place we'd read good reviews on, and they were great! A potent crepe suzette for Ryan and a tomato/cheese/mushroom one for me. Then we walked up to the striking looking 'la Cite' inside the city walls. It was crawling with tourists and was really starting to heat up, so we got some gelatis to keep cool! The town looked amazing (although too crowded), and had some great vistas out over the rest of the (newer) town. So we wandered around and battled the crowds for a little while before heading back to make our way to Montpellier.

Panoramic view from the old city of Carcassonne

So after about an hour on the road, we had reached the exit for Montpellier and lined up to pay our toll (12 or so Euros for that hour!) and it must have only been a few minutes before we got there, but when we passed through the toll gates there were cars everywhere at a complete standstill. It turned out that just up ahead a tanker, somehow, had turned on its side. (The only other accident we have seen on this trip was on the way to San Sebastian when we saw a car on its roof in a tunnel, so when they have accidents they seem to do it in spectacular fashion).

Traffic at a stand still

We were there before all the emergency crews arrived, who had to squeeze through the maze of impatient vehicles. We waited about an hour in that spot, and as it seemed as though no one was going anywhere, people started turning round and going back down the freeway (having to take another ticket, just for extra insult). I could see on google maps a couple of other alternative routes to Montpellier (completely back tracking of course) but everyone else had the same idea, not to mention that all vehicles behind us were now being shuttled down this way as well, so more traffic. Anyway, we eventually got there, but a 1 hour drive turned into a 3 hour drive which was pretty frustrating. We arrived at around 7pm, and fortunately, our hotel was very conveniently located this time! Hooray!

La Place de la Comedie in Montpellier (right near our hotel!)

Montpellier looked great - big squares and beautiful buildings. We stopped for a wine to ease the nerves of the traffic and manic driving on the way in before heading to a restaurant I'd booked called Playfood. It had great reviews on trip advisor, and was basically a place where there are little cups ('verrines') of all different foods and are 2 euro each. We were the first ones there and the guy who runs the whole show there and came up with the idea was very nice and friendly and explained how it all worked. When we said we were Australian he said he lived in Newtown for a little while! Small world! It turned out he worked for 6 months at Soni's, one of our favourite tapas bars that is no longer there. It was there that he came up with some of his ideas!

A photo of me (due to popular demand) enjoying some verrines

So we had a pretty large assortment of verrines - there were things like beetroot and goats cheese and "french toast" (but with banana and blue cheese - was yum!). It was great to be able to try lots of different flavours. And then there were a bunch of dessert verrines, like tiramisu (but without the coffee), caramel pannacotta and melon with vanilla bean. It was all great! Towards the end a bunch of cool looking hipster types set up nearby and started playing their tubas and euphoniums and trombones (which was red!) to Amy Winehouse's Rehab. They were awesome too.

Dessert verrines

Then we spent the rest of the night walking around the little old town, which looked really great, and stopped in at a couple of bars and watched the Olympics. We really loved what we saw of Montpellier and were sad we didn't have more time there, but have just put it on the growing list of places we have to come back to!

So many reds so little time

The drive from Biarritz to Bordeaux was kind of cold so we actually had to get the jackets out of the car when we landed in Bordeaux. I really didn't mind about the change of weather as drinking vin rouge in 30 degree weather is not fun anyway.

We walked into the old town and I scoured the bistrodes because I wanted to see what a french onion soup actually was after eating about a million cans of it as a kid. Success, we found a bistrode with it! When it came out it looked like a normal soup except there was a floating island of molton cheese on bread, I guess this is the French version of a crouton.

We then went for a walk to the old docks which have been converted to a bar/cafe area. This looks out to the mighty Garrone river. When we were there I started to get a bit home sick for Brisbane as the river is a similar colour.

The mighty Garrone with its unfinished bridge

Bordeaux is known as "little Paris" because of the architecture

The next day we looked up where we could do some wine tasting. The place called Max Bordeaux seemed to come up quite a few times so we headed there. This was really great as they had a setup where you get an electronic card where you top up with Euros and then go around to each wine, press a button and have a 25/50/75 mL tasting. Also they had tasting notes beside each cabinet on ipads so you knew what not to try ie. 70% merlot blends.

Yay no talking to people to get my drink on

So we got to try a lot of wines that we couldn't normally afford. I think the most expensive one we tried was 600 Euros a bottle. That wasn't my favourite though. My favourite Bordeaux wine was only around 235 Euros a bottle. Pretty reasonable really. Also we tried some really nice Bordeaux whites which were all sem/savs, they were really full on with heaps of fruit and acid.

We wandered around a bit in the old town then noticed an English bar with a sign saying happy hour from 6-10pm so we went there to watch the olympics. After that we went to a Chinese restaurant because we were desperate for some green vegetables. We got a plate of fried rice, garlic broccolli and some ginger chicken and  a bottle of Provence rose. Although I knew it would have been bad compared to back home it was one of the best goddam meals of the trip. It was at this point I realised that so far the things I miss about Australia are friends, family and decent Asian food. That's about it.

Like the brissy river the Garrone is best photographed at night

The next day the sun was back out and it was looking like a European summer again so we thought it was the perfect day for a picnic. We went to the markets and picked up some local cheese and olives, then went to another store which sold cold Ruinart champagne and foie gras de canard. We then went and cained these delicious goods in the park which had massive wine bottles everywhere. I wasn't sure if you were allowed to cain champagne in Bordeaux but we didn't get arrested so it was ok I think.

"I want to be on you"

Mmm cheese and fois

After this we went to a wine tasting place that is run by the local Bordeaux council. (Please take note City of Sydney council). I use the word tasting loosely as they were actually just massive glasses of wine and I only got through a couple. I think this would be the best government job possible as when I was wondering where the waitress had gotten to her I spied her helping herself to some of the local produce. I guess doing quality assurance to make sure it was OK for the tourists to have.

Heidi with a Bordeaux white at the council wine bar

Really wanting to sample more quality wine for dinner we researched some more back at home where to go to and settled on Le Wine Bar. This place is run by 2 multi lingual Italians who are hilarious. When Heidi ordered a gwerstraminer one of the guys gave her the hot tip of pronouncing things in German, "you need to say it like a dobermen would, GVERST TRAGHMINNEAAR!"

They also had a assiete of meat which we ordered. It came out and with a ridiculous amount of fois gras which Heidi didn't help me out with. So I think my fois count for the day was around 300 grams. As well as some awesome Bordeaux reds (which I found de graves style seems to be my cup of tea), I had an Israeli Syrah which rocked.

We also met James who we invited to our table after hearing his Aussie accent, he was from Newtown but now lives in Melbourne. He was over playing in London for The Black Armbands then doing some travelling around by himself.

Biarriches

Saturday morning we woke up feeling forlorn because we had to leave Espana against our will, but chins up we set off for some breakfast along the beach on the way to collecting our car parked up on the hill. It was a nice sunny morning and the water view was lovely while sipping our espressos and noisettes, which didn't make the thought of leaving Espana any easier. Luckily the wait for 20 or so minutes after asking for the bill and never getting it, did. We just left a 10er on the table (maybe that's how they ensure a tip?!).

Biarritz

Because we'd waited so long for the honey badger to (never) bring us la cuenta, we only just made it back to the hotel in time to collect our bags for 11am check-out. It was quietly satisfying hearing the massive church next to us chime 11am as we wheeled our bags out into reception. Lucky I was babbling onto the lady about how I wanted to move to San Sebastian coz it turned out Ryan left his glasses in the room. Nice one Ryan.

Biarritz again

Our next stay was in Biarritz, on the western French coast less than an hour away, so we made a couple of stops along the way, the first being Hondarribia right on the French border. We'd heard this place had THE best pinxtos in Spain (which following la fuego negro is hard to imagine) so although it was barely midday and we hadn't done our research we thought we'd stop by. A cute little port town with German looking architecture we walked around but it was all a bit sleepy. I suspect the best pinxtos bars open later but we found one and had tried a few - nothing spectacular but we weren't surprised, and I wasn't too disappointed as I'm sure I will be back again in the coming years, and I'll make sure we're fully prepared!

More Biarritz (just a few steps down from our hotel)

So we left Hondarribia and crossed the border back into France, where there immediately seemed to be more trees. About a 15 minute drive and we reached Saint Jean de Luz, situated on the Bay of Biscay so sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean. It is also part of Basque country so didn't feel like we'd left Spain too far behind (which I guess we really hadn't). Although overcast, it was a Saturday and it was August so the place was pretty crowded. We managed to find a parking spot though somehow, then walked down to the water. It  was quite pretty although I think it would be nicer on a sunny day. So trying to forget all the Hola's and Si's and Gracia's from the last few weeks, we stopped in at a bar to try and get a coffee and/or drink and appreciate the view, but after waiting for the French honey badger to take our order and hearing we didn't want to "manger", we got the "Je suis desolee" and something about you having to eat up until 3pm. Lady! I have just spent 3 weeks eating my way around Spain. Do I look like I need to eat?! Anyway, I didn't post-Hondaribbia pinxtos, so we left.

Ryan on our little hotel balcony

We walked around the little town a bit, which looked quite cute, but then we just decided to head straight to Biarritz. About another 15 minutes or so and we were already there, in this "luxurious seaside town" also in Basque country. The sun had come out a bit when we arrived, and so the beach was packed (which had quite a decent swell) when we drove along it to find our hotel. Ryan was pretty excited about coming here since he saw it on Endless Summer, so was hoping to rent a surfboard and catch some waves.

We parked the car in a parking station and walked to our hotel, which was right down near the water and on a little pedestrians-only street full of shops, cafes and restaurants which looked pretty cool. We checked in, and it was a pretty nice spacious room with a little balcony were you could see some of the water. We then took a long walk (the "coastal walk") along the length of the coastline, to a few different beaches around different cliffs and lookout points. There were heaps of surfers enjoying the 5-6 foot swell, and lots of swimmers too, although I can imagine the water would have been a bit chilly!

Surf's up

The views were pretty spectacular and the walk along the coast and promenade, with the big casino and heaps of tourists (I think mainly pretty well-off French tourists?) eating ice creams, was nice. As it got later the tide began to come in, and it was funny watching the waves suddenly come another few metres up the beach within seconds and all the sunbathers scrambling to pick up their towels and stuff. They had built walls along certain sections, and it was quite spectacular to see the waves (which were getting bigger) crash on to the walls with spray shooting high into the air. Not somewhere I would want to be in a big storm!

We chilled in the hotel for a bit and looked up some good seafood places for dinner, and found Le Galion which had some good reviews. So we set back out to the restaurant, and after searching for an ATM for literally half an hour (we even tried the casino - where the people get their money from in such an affluent looking town I do no know), we got a table at Le Galion. It was a pretty nice looking place with water (and casino) views but the menu was pretty reasonable, and so we both got the 3 course summer menu for 19 Euros which was pretty good value! It even came with an amuse bouche (gazpacho). So I had some fish carpaccio and salmon tartare and fruit skewers which was all pretty nice. Ryan had some salad thing and grilled fish of the day (which had vegetables much to his delight) and some delicious chocolate dessert. Pretty good! After that we just headed home for a pretty early night, despite the streets around our hotel being packed with people who from the sounds of it partied into the wee hours.

Panoramic of Biarritz

The next morning the skies were again grey and it was pretty chilly, so Ryan decided not to go surfing after all. In fact we just checked out of the hotel and found a cafe for our morning coffees, and it was so chilly sitting there (must have been 15 degrees or something) that after waiting for Ryan's average croque monsieur to arrive (which was never clear whether it had actually been ordered or not) we just decided to get in the car and head straight to our next destination, Bordeaux. The rain soon started and the 2 hour drive to Bordeaux was mainly in the rain, some of it torrential, but it eased off just as we arrived in Bordeaux, although still a pretty chilly 17 degrees or so, much to my  dismay as this meant I would have to try and fit into my jeans. Oh dear.

By the beard of Zeus

There was a long drive from Madrid to San Sebastian so we had to break it up with a stop in Burgos where we had some 1 euro boccidillos for lunch. I would tell Spain to please increase your prices to 2 euro for a meal and get out of debt, but this would probably incite riots as it impacts their way of life.

We made our way into San Sebastian and either google or Heidi gave some bad directions (lets say google did for the sake of the marriage) and we ended up being stopped by some polisia local. I thought "Oh noes another Spanish Inquisition", but they just informed us that we can't drive down the "zona peatonal". No fine because they weren't arsehole Australian police.

After checking in we were told that the only free parking was miles away on a hill in a residential area. We went and parked the car on the ridiculous hill amongst the ridiculously grandiose houses and apartments, then walked down along the beach promenade and had a gin and tonic(I'm a fan of these since Barcelona, its like a martini, but for daytime).

View from the carpark(this place should be good).

For dinner, we went out to the Parte Vieja (Old Town) and the place was buzzing already a bit after 7pm which is quite early for Spain to be buzzing. After walking around a few places and having some room temperature seafood pinxtos next to areas of the bar where you either get constantly bumped into or standing where they were bussing finished plates and glasses, I was kind of over it and wondering what the big deal was about San Sebastian.

One of the streets of the old town

I mean we had already had pinxtos for lunch with Dan Smith in Barcelona and that was awesome. It was fresh, not busy and you could enjoy them without someone pushing a plate of half finished pinxtos past you to the bar. Anyway we retired to a another quiet bar where there were for some reason a lot of Aussies. I guess sometimes you just want to watch the Olympics and have a quiet pint.

Thursday, we did a walk up the hills on the opposite end of town, past the Parte Vieja, to go up the winding roads to the statue of Christ. There's a few old battlements and a castle. I didn't get all the translations but Napoleon was mentioned and I think this was a key vantage point to hold back in the old days. 

Once we got up to the castle, just under the feet of the statue of Christ, there was some more breathtaking views to be seen incase your breath wasn't already taken from the hike up. There were a lot of Spanish people saying "hey Zeus" when we got up there, but I think they're all pretty bad at theology as the statue at the top was Christ, not Zeus...idiots.

What up Zeus?

Us ruining the view.

Later we took a walk to the other beach across the bridge "Playa de Zurriola", which the weather had taken a turn, it was really blowy, but walking across that bridge was amazing. The river was really tidal and you could see fish battling the currents on the changing tide in the clear water.

We went back home to research where we could get some decent food. My mate Ev had whatsapped me and said I must "find a tapas place at back end of old town, has sign Keller 18 out front, and jamon wrapped scallops the size of rib fillets" (Keller 18 is like on every sign because its the local beer) and that at "top end there's a red and black lighting modern tapas at the other end of old town shops and maccas". With these directions how could I go wrong. Anyways we came across this website www.todopintxos.com and drew all the bars we could into our tourist map and set out. 

N.B. Heidi's phone cannot eject SIM after she tried to get it out with a toothpick and my phone battery died in Barcelona so we've been living like savages when we're out and about, hence the tourist maps.

Who needs technology when you're a savage?

We nearly made it to 31 de Agosto, when I noticed that there was an ambient bar with red lighting which I thought Heidi would be interested in as you could barely see anything in there. Heidi describes this kind of thing as "ambiance". I said to the waiter in there "mesa por dos" and he answered back in English "sit where ever you want" because my Spanish is so terrible. We grabbed a spot at the bar and ordered from an English menu which was kind of comforting as it was "Nuevos Tapas" which basically meant new tapas or "not the same shit you've been eating all across this country for the past 3 weeks in every bar". Anyway I digress.

The menu in Basque lit in red and black I think this is where the name comes from.

The place was called "a Fuego Negro". This menu was awesome, all cooked to order. I  also spied a copy of "the bible" in a display case which meant this food was going to be top notch. There was cool hip hop playing too. We ordered rabbit with garlic, fried octopus and olive salad, olives with vermouth and ceviche with pomegranate foam. So good.

Ceviche with pomegranate foam

Olives with vermouth gel

Roast garlic bunny, the playboy thing was parmesan

Then we went up to La Cuchara de San Telmo, which was first on the list from todopinxtos. The menus again were Ingles thank god. (I have noticed that it's a lot easier to read French menus than Spanish despite coming over with no French. I think it's due to the French impact on cuisine. Goddam even cuisine sounds French.) Anyway, this place gets the worst vegetarian restaurant award. We had jamon wrapped maine scallops which are the size of rib medallions, ah this must be the other place Ev was on about. Also suckling pig, diced cuttlefish with venison snout(was yummy, connective tissue from land and sea together at last!) and slow cooked veal cheeks. Aw yeah. Also the jamon wrapped scallops took a while to come out so the nice bartender gave me a plate of pigs trotters which someone didn't claim because we looked like we needed more meat.

Scallops were like 5cm across, must source maine scallops when back home.
Why are we bothering with tiny ones?

We went around to check out a few more of the places but by this time we were really quite stuffed and couldn't be bothered dealing with the crowds so we just went to a quiet bar that didn't have pinxtos and watched Australia disappoint in the pool again.

Friday morning we did some shopping then went for a walk around La Concha bay to the edge of it. There's some metal sculptures drilled into the rocks there which were installed called "wind combs". I think the sculpturist also designed this tunnel that when there's a big swell creates a blowhole that comes out of the pavement nearby. Unfortunately it was low tide when we got there so we didn't get to see the blowholes in action.

The wind combs

After stopping for a coffee we went to A Fuego Negro again, because we're fatties and it's awesome. This time, amongst others like "frozen cheese with anchovies" (a whipped cream cheese semi-freddo type thing), we had a dessert which is called "regalize it" and is like a little pot leaf in soil. (We worked out later in Biarritz that regalize is Basque for dessert or something when we saw it on an icecream shop). I went for a swim after lunch as the sun was out and managed to catch a few waves, the swell was quite good, about 3ft.

When it was dinner time we went back to the jamon and scallop place before it was due to open and camped it out at the bar next door waiting for 8pm. Once it was open we got inside and secured a precious standing bar spot. This time the guy asked for my name when he took the order, I said Ryan, then got the que? back and tried spelling it in the spanish pronunciation but it was getting us nowhere so I said "Ryan" again and he said "wine?" and I was like yep that's fine much to the amusement of the 2 Aussies I was ordering next to. Anyway when our orders came out he yelled out WINE! and I was like SI! and there were many lols had.

Can you guess what we did afterwards? Aw yeah watching the olympics back at our favourite bar.

Anyway to summarise, I could easily live in San Sebastian at least during the summer months, its freaking awesome, has a lot of history and the people there are really nice.

San Sebastian is a pretty small place