3rd October (sunny and mild, cool breeze) 32 km

Woke this morning at 7.40am. It’s still dark at that time to an extent, just enough to make you want to roll over and get some more kip. Anyway, we couldn’t have done that this morning because if it wasn’t the digger working behind the camp, starting precisely at 7am, it would have been the planes or the trains, not to mention the motorway.  I swear that at a worldwide convention for campsites, they sit and discuss just how to get you out of bed in the morning. It doesn’t matter if it’s a two star or a five star rated camp, if they can park you next to an airport runway, or a glass recycling plant, they will.

Upon waking Julia went to pick up the powerbank that she had left with the guy to charge, but it had not done so. Whether this was a loose connection or just not pushed in properly, we don’t know, but we plugged everything in that we could into the power sockets in the bathrooms while we breakfasted and then dismantled the tent. Packed up an absolutely sodden fly sheet again along this time with the groundsheet and inner. The fly had dripped water onto the inner and you could have had a bath, there was that much water. Just another job that required doing later.

This track was too rough to ride, but at least we didn't have to go back on that busy road

There was no way either of us wanted to get back on those busy roads so using Maps Me, Ju had plotted a course on trails and tracks this morning. First, we had to push our bikes up a stony track and through a tunnel under the railway lines to the other side, where we met up with a small road that led us into Errenteria. From there, using this fantastic App, we negotiated our way through this working class industrial city, which I might add, had fantastic bike paths. It was while we were looking to check a direction that our day’s adventure began.

Very industrial on the way into San Sebastian - but great cycle paths!

Along comes a guy called Daniel, a seventy three year old, who without any use of English manages to ask us if we are heading for San Sebastian. He then cycles and we follow him the 10km on perfect cycleways all the way to the city and down to the beachside promenade. 

In the words of Elton John - Daniel...you're a star!!!

Ju here: Yes, we couldn’t have asked for a more dramatically different start to today after the end of our day yesterday.  It was like Spain was testing our desire to see her.  You want to see what I have to offer, well let’s see how much you really want it.  But it was only a very short, but tough test and suddenly we’re in and welcomed like old family members.  The sun is shining, the washing drying on the handlebars and the people friendly.  Errenteria was not much to write home about, but San Sebastian…..wow!  And lovely Daniel, not content with just leading us there, then becomes our personal tour guide, riding us from this place to that, for all the best vantage points and walking us through town, showing us all the tapas bars, brimming over with food on the bars.  

Surf beach

Swim beach - Konxta Plage, just a two minute bike ride from the surf beach

Downtown

A myriad of clean tidy streets, filled with tapas bars

It was close to lunchtime and looked very inviting, so he took us to his favourite bar and shouted us a glass of wine and an anchovy tapa each.  Not sure I’ve ever eaten anchovies before, but to me it tasted a lot like sardines……so I LOVED IT!  So we ordered another round of tapas for us all, this time anchovies with sea urchins on (by this time we were one glass of wine down and keen for anything).  Still tasted like sardines to me but now we knew how much they were and heck, we could have had two cans of sardines each for the price of each tapa.  So two was enough and we left the bar with Daniel who showed us a bit more of his hometown.

It is made for bicycles, bike paths everywhere and we wonder if that is to cater for the students as they have a university here.  Certainly if you want a young buzz to your town, plonk a university in it.  Factor in a surf beach and a beach with no waves and bars upon bars and well kept, very clean streets and you have yourself a winner.  Daniel escorted us to the supermarket but it was quite small and they didn’t have chilli con carne – oh no, what to do?  Luckily they had sardines, so packed a couple of tins away and some frozen broccoli to have for tea later. 

We then said goodbye to our wonderful host and headed back to the square to make use of the free wifi.  However, it was only half an hour which I was quite glad about as we didn’t want to spend too long on the computer on such a beautiful day.  So we cycled to an inconspicuous place at the end of the bay and laid the flysheet out to dry while we brewed a cup of coffee.  We had stopped by the tourism office earlier and been told of two campsites.  She was pretty sure they were both open but neither camp answered their phone when she rang them.  She recommended Igueldo, which she said was a very nice camp in a lovely setting, but it was up a 3km long hill.  I didn’t say anything but Pete knew it would need more than a lovely setting to get me up a 3 km long hill, especially when she wasn’t even sure it was open.  The other option was Igara, which was not as far out of our way and looked to be accessible from a road following a river – usually a good sign that the road will probably be reasonably flat. 

Pete said we should just go to the one the tourist office recommended.  I reminded him we did that last night and look how that turned out!  So after a quick stop at another supermarket to get breakfast supplies as both camps were in the middle of nowhere, we found ourselves in the identical situation as last night. Cycling out of town about 5.00pm towards a campground the tourism office had told us was open.  I had looked at Maps Me and said to Pete I wanted to try an alternate route rather than the 3km (which MapsMe told me was actually 8km), steep hill route suggested by the tourist girl from the comfort of her soft chair in her air conditioned office who had probably never been on a bike in her life.  This road also happened to pass the other camp, Igara, which the tourist girl seemed to know nothing about.

I nervously led us along the flat bike paths of San Sebastian to the required road which followed a small creek, hoping that we wouldn’t be on another wild goose chase.  We hadn’t gone too far at all when we came across the sign for Igara Camping.  We followed numerous signs with a few little hills, but nothing major and eventually came to the camp which was….OPEN!  We were delighted!  Not only were they open, but they only charged 11 euros for the night.  And they have free wifi, and they have a pool and unlike last night’s camp which also had a pool, this one was big, full of water and inviting rather than half full of dirty green water with weeds growing from between the tiles.  The toilets and showers here are immaculate and vast.  We have the use of a common room, a microwave, an electric jug and a fridge.  There’s a gym and a sauna!  And we can power our devices for free!  So we think we’ll stay here two nights!  Yes, today has been a very good day so we are just hoping for a good night now.  There are no motorways, no airports, no diggers, no railway lines and we have positioned our tent slightly behind a shed to shield us from the camp lights.

The huge common room that we had mainly to ourselves

The pool which we hope to make use of tomorrow

Pete here: However…there is always a however. I’ve just taken our dishes back to the tent after dinner, leaving Julia to blog and there is a couple setting up their tent, not twenty feet from ours. Are you kidding people?  This site is vast and you pitch right next to us. Did you hear we were the best show in town or something..? As I put the stuff inside, I noticed that there was condensation already forming on the tent, the temperature has dropped dramatically, but it could mean that we are swimming even before we enjoy the lovely pool tomorrow. Not a good selling point for Vango tents however.

Spoke to Elizabeth on the phone tonight and her and Phil are hoping to reach us in San Sebastian tomorrow. We have a coffee date with an older couple from Holland called Anna and Mike at 10.00am, then we think we’ll try out the pool. After lunch, perhaps Julia will get a surf if it’s any good and by then the guys will be getting close, as long as they take a different route to the one that we chose. Time to close down on a day that has seen our impression of Spain increase greatly and that goes for its inhabitants as well.