San Sebastián in 2 days, on foot

This 2-day self-guided walking plan for San Sebastián covers 20 narrated sights in an easy day-by-day order. Each day is split into a morning and an afternoon loop, and every stop has a two to three minute audio story in the Gingerguide app.

You set the pace: this is a suggested order, not a schedule. Walk it in 2 days, or stretch it out. Reorder freely; San Sebastián rewards a detour.

Day 1

Morning

1. La Concha Beach: Widely considered the most beautiful city beach in Europe, a perfectly shell-shaped bay of fine white sand, framed by Mount Urgull and Mount Igueldo, with the Isla Santa Clara in the centre, and the elegant Belle Époque promenade curving along its shore.
2. Parte Vieja (Old Town): San Sebastián's compact medieval old town, a grid of narrow streets packed with the highest concentration of pintxos bars per square metre in the world, where bar-hopping is the city's primary ritual and Basque creative cuisine reaches its apotheosis.
3. Mount Urgull: The wooded hill that anchors the eastern end of La Concha bay, crowned by the Castle of the Holy Cross and a large Christ statue, with panoramic views over the bay, old town, and harbour, and containing the cemetery where many Napoleonic War casualties are buried.
4. Kursaal Congress Centre: Rafael Moneo's two monumental glass cubes on the mouth of the Urumea river, inaugurated in 1999 and immediately hailed as a masterpiece of contemporary architecture, the Kursaal is the home of the San Sebastián International Film Festival.
5. San Telmo Museoa (Basque Museum): The Basque Country's premier museum of history and culture, housed in a spectacular 16th-century Dominican convent and a modern extension, it contains El Greco paintings, Basque prehistoric finds, folk culture exhibits, and tells the complete story of Basque identity.

Afternoon

1. Mount Igueldo: The wooded hill anchoring the western end of La Concha bay, reached by a 1912 funicular, it offers the most famous panoramic view of San Sebastián and its perfect bay, with a vintage amusement park on top that has operated since 1912.
2. Arzak Restaurant: Juan Mari Arzak's legendary three-Michelin-star restaurant on the hill south of San Sebastián, the pioneer of Nueva Cocina Vasca (New Basque Cuisine), opened in 1897 and now run with daughter Elena, it is one of the ten best restaurants in the world.
3. Mugaritz: Andoni Luis Aduriz's two-Michelin-star restaurant 20 kilometres east of San Sebastián, regularly voted among the world's five best, it is the most intellectually provocative restaurant in Spain, where food dissolves into philosophy, poetry, and art.
4. San Sebastián International Film Festival: One of the great film festivals of the world, held each September since 1953, it awards the Golden Shell to the best film and attracts major directors and stars to the Kursaal and theatres of San Sebastián for one week of cinema.
5. Basque Identity & Euskera: The ancient and fiercely independent Basque culture, speaking Euskera, the oldest language in Europe with no known relatives, maintaining distinct traditions, gastronomy, and political identity across northern Spain and southern France.

Day 2

Morning

1. Semana Grande (Big Week): San Sebastián's greatest annual festival, eight days in mid-August of concerts, bullfights, sporting events, and above all the Fireworks Competition, considered the greatest fireworks event in the world, with displays over La Concha bay each night.
2. Hondarribia (Fuenterrabía): A beautifully preserved medieval walled town on the Bidasoa estuary 20 kilometres east of San Sebastián, the Spanish frontier town facing France, with a 10th-century castle, colourful fishermen's houses, Baroque church, and famous pintxos bars in the lower port.
3. Miramar Palace: The 19th-century summer royal palace that established San Sebastián as the resort destination of Spanish royalty, built for Queen María Cristina in 1893 on the headland between La Concha and Ondarreta beaches, now used for international conferences.
4. San Sebastián Aquarium & Naval Museum: San Sebastián's historic aquarium at the tip of the old town peninsula, home to a spectacular shark tunnel, whale and dolphin skeletons, and the Naval Museum exploring the Basque maritime tradition, from whalers to navigators.
5. Bretxa Market: San Sebastián's traditional covered market in the heart of the old town, the source of the finest pintxos ingredients, with vendors of fresh fish from the Basque coast, local vegetables, Idiazabal cheese, and Ibérico meats beneath its historic iron roof.

Afternoon

1. Playa de la Zurriola & Gros: San Sebastián's surf beach on the eastern bank of the Urumea river, the surfers' beach where Atlantic swells arrive year-round, fronting the Kursaal and the bohemian Gros neighbourhood with its creative restaurants and bars.
2. Pintxos Bar Culture: The defining cultural institution of San Sebastián, bar-hopping through the old town with pintxos (Basque tapas) and txakoli wine, a social ritual that is as important to the city's identity as its Michelin stars, its beach, or its film festival.
3. Cathedral of the Good Shepherd: San Sebastián's Neo-Gothic cathedral completed in 1897, the tallest building in the city with its 75-metre spire, built to replace the parish church destroyed in the 1813 Napoleonic burning, serving as the spiritual centre of the modern city.
4. Monte Ulia & Coastal Trail: The dramatic cliff-top natural park east of San Sebastián, a wild coastal landscape of rocky headlands, blowholes, and sea caves with the best coastal walking in the Basque Country, offering views back to La Concha bay and forward to the French Basque coast.
5. La Concha & Miramar Palace Views: The headland between La Concha and Ondarreta beaches, the western anchor of the bay where the Miramar Palace gardens offer the finest close-up views of La Concha, with the Isla Santa Clara and the bay in perfect composition.

Full San Sebastián guide and all stops →