Jeannine & Roger's French Cheese Odyssey

San Sebastian - 12th June

San Sebastián is a resort town on the Bay of Biscay in Spain’s mountainous Basque Country. It’s known for its la Concha and Ondarreta beaches, picturesque bay-front promenade and its cobblestoned old town.

We arrived and easily got a car park at the far end of the bay, yet again timing it perfectly to get 2 hours free lunchtime parking.
Our first geocache location, which looked out to the Island of Santa Klara, was at the foot of Mont Urgull, a hill with a fortress that was instrumental back in its day for keeping an eye on the invading Brits and Napoleon.

Today’s added view was a sinking boat being rescued, on our return journey 3 hours later it was floating again.

The second geocache was near the port and the start of the Sanse’t Boulevard on a concrete ship used as a restaurant. At first glance it looks like an old ship parked up, but no, its concrete and even though built in 1929 it is described as a work of modern architecture.
Because of the boats interesting cultural properties it has been deemed a monument. No photo of the boat but below is interesting culture in the form of a merry-go-round (all beach resorts have them).

The third cache was at the La Concha Beach, hidden on a fancy lamppost right in the middle of the busy boulevard, so no prize there.
Photo is of the chairs waiting to be hired and the view across the bay to where our car is parked.

The fourth cache was at Ondarreta beach, after walking through the pedestrian tunnel. Inside the tunnel was a busker who kept singing “take the line to the left”, I took this as a hint to where the cache was, wrong, but we found it anyway.

The fifth cache was to be at the end of the beach by the funicular; however there was a more appealing attraction up the hill at the Miramar Palace and gardens. The house below was built in the 19th century for the Spanish Royal family to come here for their summer holidays and take the sea waters. The gardens extend over the car and pedestrian tunnels that go between the two beaches, they were once much bigger in size, but the locals reclaimed the land back; however they didn’t put back the church that the royal family had removed for their palace extensions.

The sixth cache was back in town in the old quarters. We stopped and had lunch at 2.30pm, in keeping with the Spanish lunch time. Roger had another good coffee and I had...
Cheese Experience No.52 - Cheese Scroll I still haven’t been able to find a cheese shop to sell me Spanish cheese so a cheese scroll was the last resort. Unfortunately, like the French, the Spanish think sugar has to be added to everything, so what I thought was a savoury lunch was actually quite sweet.

The seventh cache was at the Basilica de Santa Maria del Coro, from the 18th century. It has a grand entrance on the exterior, however I can’t show you a picture of the inside because the profit orientated Spanish wanted 3€ each to go inside. Most of the non-Spanish speaking tourists paid the beggar outside, whereas the rest of us walked inside and had a quick glance while pretending to be in the payment queue.

After three hours of walking around San Sebastian we set off to the next beach, Hendaye back in France, for the last cache of the day. This beach is much quieter, but still there were the same over-withered brown bodies who could only afford the bottom half of their swim costume. The two ladies below are the exception; I’m assuming they are English as they are properly clad, white, are not immersed in sand and are facing concrete apartment blocks, rather than the panoramic seaside.

A bit of Kiwiana at Hendaye beach