Today’s adventure began early in the morning at the Barcelona Sants train station. We arrived an hour before the train was supposed to leave, enjoyed some croissants for breakfast, and had our bags scanned by security. When it was time to board, we were pulled aside since our EuroRail pass wasn’t stamped. We had seats on the train, but the passes were never activated by EuroRail customer service in Paris, and the pass activation date was different from our first train trip. Multiple errors on my part not fully understanding the archaic EuroRail system. They let us board anyway, and when we arrived in San Sebastián we had it stamped. Still not perfect but probably good enough for our last leg of the trip in a few days.

The train trip from Barcelona to San Sebastián was slow going. The train provided some entertainment for the kids showing Alvin and the Chipmunks and Hotel Transylvania 2 in Spanish. And we enjoyed the scenery. But unlike the Paris to Barcelona train trip, this train went much slower for the latter half of the trip winding its way through the Pyrenees mountains.

San Sebastián is a beach community on the northern coast of Spain in Basque country. Our modern, one bedroom apartment is on the sixth floor, a 5 minute walk from the town’s 2 beaches.

The architecture is stunning. Green mountains surround the beachside community, and the buildings are so ornate, it makes us feel like we are in Austria.

We were on the beach by 5pm, and quickly shooed away from the area where Paul and the kids waded into the water as it is reserved for the surfers and surf school. The area where people are allowed to swim is adjusted every 15 minutes by lifeguards constantly monitoring the surf. A lot more topless women here and Miss M made an excellent observation — that women in the US would never go topless at a beach because we have such a judge-y society, whereas here you see people of all shapes and sizes, comfortable with their bodies.

By 8pm we arrived at our first pintxos bar, Gandarias Jatetxea.  Pintxos are the Basque version of tapas, only smaller. You grab a plate, fill it up with the pintxos you want from the bar, order a drink and pay for the whole thing. We got a pic of Paul ordering at the bar of our first stop (below) so you can see the yummy mushroom tower on bread but not the sea urchin. No pics of our second spot where D feasted on a potato, egg, ham and cheese omelette. But here’s a pic of the third set of plates from Baztan.