28. Things to do in San Sebastian, the most beautiful place you haven't heard of

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and travel is back. Last week.

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We're in Barcelona this week maybe my
favorite place that have been San Sebastian,

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Spain. I think of it a
lot now. To make our way

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from Barcelona San Sebastian, I was
on a soccer trip with my son.

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We took the bus seven hours and
there's a lot of nothing out there.

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There's a lot of I don't know
if desert is the right term, but

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there's a lot of nothing to see. This is not going to be a

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scenic drive for you, except for
the last hour. You could take a

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train five hours and thirty three minutes. Price for that. At the time

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of this recording, twenty nine dollars. I got to kind of consider that,

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right, or if you've got a
car, it's a five hour trip

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thrown a fifty two miles a lot
of nowhere in between. A quick story

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before we dive in. So on
that trip, on the way up from

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Barcelona to San Sebastian, we stopped
at a rest stop and it was the

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dirtiest, craziest rest stop I'd ever
seen. My son and I we were

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hungry, and we just looked at
all the food that was out there and

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we were like, now, I
mean just flies everywhere. We got a

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soda out of a soda machine.
So I'm sitting there drinking a Fanta Orange.

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I just want to sit somewhere.
There's like cafeteria style tables at the

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other end of the table, and
I don't mean like twenty feet away,

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I mean like three feet away.
A guy changing his baby on the table.

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So this place was just gross.
And I share that story because when

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we came back the other way from
San Sebastian back to Barcelona to get our

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flight home, we stopped at maybe
the nicest rest stop I've ever been in.

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Like New Jersey, you wish you
had one, this nice brand new

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The food was awesome. We got
multiple things, and I was like,

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why didn't we stop here on the
way up. San Sebastian, also known

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as Donastia up in the Basque region
of Spain. It's Spain, but it's

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not. I'll let the locals argue
that out, but it clearly feels different

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and has its own language. San
Sebastian, Dnastia lies along a white sandy

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bay up on the northern coast.
The town center of San Sebastian overlooks La

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Concha Bay. Oh, boy,
talk about a beautiful beach. I could

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sit there forever. We're gonna talk
about a beautiful beach. Monte Glado marks

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one end of the beach, a
wonderful vantage point for enjoying views over the

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city. The beach is bordered by
a lovely promenade, and I mean lovely

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with elegant railings. It's just it's
like everything of I guess late nineteenth century

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architecture, Like everything is just perfect. I would go out for a run

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on that promenade every morning. I
feel like I was doing maybe five mile

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runs. You up and back,
but you know you're by the water.

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It just gorders the architectures Court.
Oh my goodness, I love this place.

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So you keep going. You'll arrive
at the old Casino, which these

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days is the City Hall. There
you can veer off to the right and

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hit the old town. We'll talk
about that, where he can hit up

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to the summit of Urgell, dominated
by Lamota Castle. In the oldest part

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of San Sebastian. The churches of
San Vicente and Santa Maria Decorro wait you,

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the former a Gothic church, the
latter a Renaissance Baroque church. San

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Sebastian is a cosmopolitan city with a
strong Basque character, which is clearing its

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cultural events. The Samana Grande,
with its fishing boat regatta, tells us

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something of the tradition. While there
are prestigious film and jazz festivals. Yeah,

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when I was there, they were
advertising the film festival and I was

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like, oh, that looks really
awesome. But one of the best ways

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of touring San Sebastian is approaching its
culture through its cuisine. Allow me jump

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in here. If you're a foodie, do some other homework. I'm not

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a foodie. I'm a beach guy. Now, believe me. I love

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the food and San Sebastian. But
I you want me to speak meaningfully about

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food, like at a foodie level. Yeah, they're wrong podcast just warning

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you, playing my cards up.
Somebody else can do a much better job

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of that. If you want a
recommendation. Anthony Bourdain, he's kind of

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famous. He has a whole episode
on No Reservations about San Sebastian. Let

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Anthony Bourdain tell you about the food. I'll just tell you what they did

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when I walked around. Bass Cookery
has international prestige thanks to its raw materials

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and the skill of its cooks,
who have both traditional and imaginative repertoires.

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Bass Cookery has international prestige thanks to
its raw material and the skill of its

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cooks. It must be said that
some of the most renowned restaurants in Spain

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are in San Sebastian's recipes are made
with vegetables, fish, and shellfish.

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Devour tours rights. Forget everything you
thought you knew about Spain. You won't

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find any flamaco here, and ordering
tapas is a sure sign that you're a

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tourist. They're called pink shows here. The Bass Country's unique geography of rugged

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mountains and jagged coastlines has made it
difficult for foreign invaders to conquer throughout history.

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Yeah, when I went up to
the mountain, you could just see

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they had old, like I guess
cannons that some old cannons that were still

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up there, and you could see
you would just be up there with your

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cannon. You would see a ship
coming miles away and just shoot at it.

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Can definitely see how it was easily
protected. The ancient Romans did arrive

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in the area, and the ethnic
Basques, who could trace their roots back

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in the region to Neolithic times,
managed to keep most of their heritage and

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culture intact. Unlike many other parts
of Spain, you won't find many Roman

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ruins. Also, that means Latin
and Arabic had no influence on the Basque

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language, which is definitely not Spanish, so I was laughing. You would

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see signs, you know, even
if you took high school Spanish, you'd

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be like, okay, I know
what that word means. They would have

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the Spanish word, the Castilian word, and then the Basque word, So

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the Spanish word and the Castilian would
be very similar, and then the Basque

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word would have teas and x's and
h's, and it was just like completely

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different, like you know how,
like you can kind of bounce between Spanish,

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French, Italian. Basque is something
else entirely devour Chorea says, even

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if you've studied Spanish for years,
you might feel overwhelmed and confused upon arriving

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because you can't understand much of what
you hear. That's because many locals speak

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Basque rather than Spanish. You scare, which is the Basque word for Basque

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is its own root language, with
no known connection to any other language on

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Earth. The Telegraph rights, there's
no better spots eat in Spain than San

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Sebashi. And it's a brash statement, but if anyone can make it,

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it's the food obsessed Basks that populate
this dazzling coastal town with the second most

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Michelin stars per capita and a respectable
claim to the title of most bars per

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person. This is a glutton's heavens. Yeah, the bass have invented a

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novel way of eating, hopping from
bar to bar, standing up, sampling

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bite sized bits of culinary art.
The Pink Show. I did that maybe

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three four nights terrow. It is
a great time. You head into old

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town and you just like I just
Ritzia. You bounce from bar to bar,

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you grab a couple snacks and then
you're onto the next place. Amazing.

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Of course that was all pre COVID. The lush greenery and beautiful coastline

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of San Sebastian make it the perfect
place to stay active, go for a

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run, ding or a bike ride
in and get on a bike out there.

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I would have loved to through the
countryside or outside the city. Try

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your hand at rowing. Yeah,
my son in the bay, there's an

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island out in the middle. My
son and his soccer team they rented a

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boat and rowed out to the island. I wanted to go, I never

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anyone to go with and my son
blew me off. Thanks a lot,

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kid. So that's on my list
of things I wish I had done when

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I was at place, didn't get
to do it. You also want to

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go to the top of Monte Igueldo, you'd take a funicular that's one hundred

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years old. So a funicular is
it's kind of like a cable car,

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but it's on the ground. It's
like a train, like an angled train.

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And I explained funicular, but that's
pretty cool. And then when you

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get to the top. There's like
an old timy amusement park, like I

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don't want to make it sound like
it's six flags, but there is rides

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and stuff and some food and the
views are spectacular. Actually, if you

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want to check out my portfolio site, which is John McDermott dot me,

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I think from memory, you know, I could just check I'm on a

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computer, but I think I think
my profile photo is taken up at the

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top of that mountain. Great spot. So that's if we're looking at the

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ocean, that's all the way on
the left and then all the way on

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the right. You want to climb
a mounts a Urgell, That's what I

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talked about before. From up there, you can see the three beaches and

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you can see the remains of the
wall in that area and cannons, and

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there's a history museum. Very cool. There's an aquarium. I didn't go,

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and if you listen to the podcast
in the past, you know I

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love aquariums, but I just felt
like this place is so gorgeous and I

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want to take it all in and
I didn't want to use up like four

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hours on the aquarium. But that's
right next to the harbor. It doubles

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as a maritime history museum with displays
of historic ships. Thirty one aquariums within

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the aquarium, including the oceanarium with
a three hundred and sixty degree tunnel where

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you can observe forty species of fish
swimming overhead, including two sand tiger sharks.

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The guy Dan I was hanging out
with, I remember he did the

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aquarium and he liked it a lot. I think I sat on the beach

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all day that day. Oh so
good on the beach. Now when I

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was there, I was isn't aware
of the cider culture. When I make

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it back there, I'm going to
do this. The New York Times says

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naturally fermented ciders have long enjoyed favor
in this region of Spain, but some

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young Basque microbreweries is starting to produce
at craft beers that could sway local preferences.

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For a taste, visit malagasona beer
house, a brew pub with a

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dozen tabs poring artisanal bruise. Asked
for a zerzo, which is a small

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poor of their amber based pale ale. As you bounce around San Sebastian,

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you'll find a couple of plazas too. There's one down by the river,

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and there's one in the middle of
old town that at one point was a

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bullfighting ring, And all the restaurants
just have tables outside and you just sit

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there. And in the summer,
by the way, Spain artificially has its

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time zone sets like that. The
sun sets at like nine thirty. It

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is amazing. In the middle of
the summer, they just grab a friend,

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sit outside, have some food,
have some drinks, people watch.

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I love it. If I had
one day in San Sebastian, boy,

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that is really tough. The beach. The beach is so cortus. I

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know it's countered to what I say
a lot of times, but this is

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my number one rank beach in the
world. So grab a towel, sit

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on the beach. There's like a
float thing you can swim out to,

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not too far but not too close. Go out there, sit on the

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float dock for a couple of minutes. Come back, sit on your towel.

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People watch a little more. If
you're an American like me, the

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ladies were a little less than they
do on American beaches. I'll leave that

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thought there, but doesn't make for
the worst experience. So I'd hang out

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on the beach. But boy,
oh well, one day, all right,

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this is a tough choice. Head
to the mountain on the left and

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do the amusement park, come home, shower change, head off to old

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town. Definitely do the pin show
run and you could start that pretty early

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in the evening. There's like a
CSTA period. I don't remember when it

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is, but you know, let's
say it's over and say seven pm something

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like that. Then you can post
siesta, just knock out all the pink

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shows and then late night, pull
up a chair and one of those plazas,

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drink and head back and wish she
had more time in San Sebastian.

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I know, I wish I did. So next we're going to head up

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the Basque Coast into France to bear
Its, which is kind of similar but

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kind of different because it's France not
Spain. But boy, it's just as

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gorgeous. Travels back, see you
next week.