Beautiful places of Barcelona and Catalonia: EUSKADI: DONOSTIA

After the three days we spent in Santander, Comillas, Santillana del Mar and Bilbao, we arrived at Gipuzkoa, where we visited:

Donostia (San Sebastián)
Getaria
Zarautz
Hondarribi (Hondarribia)

I must say that I really liked these places.

Tuesday, 28th july 2009

Donostia (San Sebastián)

Donostia is an elegant and lovely town with a fantastic beach, a genuine old quarter and a magnificent and an harmonious urbanistic design, as I will try to show you in the next pictures. I really liked this town. These are the beautiful places we visited in Donostia:

La Kontxa (Concha) Beach
Ondarreta Beach
Miramar Palace
Peine del Viento by Chillida
Urgull Mount
Kursaal
Gipuzkoa square
Constitución Square and Old Quarter
Cathedral and New Quarter

La Kontxa (La Concha) Beach

As soon as we arrived at Donostia, we went to the wonderful beach of La Kontxa. In the background, the Urgull mountain

From the same point than the previous picture, but in the opposite direction, we can see the Igueldo mount and Santa Clara island

Igueldo mount and La Concha beach in San Sebastián

Ondarreta Beach

A bit later the sunshine caressed warmly our faces and we started to see some bathers in La Concha beach who were eager to enjoy this hot and shining day in San Sebastián

Ondarreta beach and Igueldo mount in San Sebastián

A fantastic view of Ondarreta beach and the Igueldo mountain from the Miramar Palace in San Sebastián

Gardens near Ondarreta beach in San Sebastian

A little garden we saw walking along Ondarreta beach. Gardens in Donostia are splendid

Miramar Palace

Miramar Palace is a really colourful building in "Cottage" english style. From here we could enjoy fantastic views of La Kontxa Bay in San Sebastián

Peine del Viento by Chillida

Under the Igueldo Mountain in San Sebastián, and after walking for almost one hour, we arrived at the "Peine del Viento". The "Peine del Viento" is a monument created by the famous sculptor Chillida in a windy place

A panoramic view of La Kontxa in San Sebastián. In the background, on the right, the Igueldo Mount

The building on the right, between the Kontxa beach and the Urgull mountain, is the City Hall of Donostia. The old quarter begins just behind this bulding

The building of the City Hall of San Sebastián was built originally to be a Gran Casino. In front of it, the Alderdi Eder Gardens

Urgull Mount

Everybody had told us that the view of Donostia from the Urgull mountain was wonderful, so we went up to the top of the mountain

Already on the top of the Urgull mount in San Sebastián, we could see, on the left, the Kursaal (a bit hidden) and the Zurriola beach

This is the view of the Kontxa beach in San Sebastián. This beach gives an special charm to the city. Its 1,370 metres of length draw a gentle curve and relates harmoniously to the mountains and buildings of Donostia-San Sebastián. On the left the old quarter appears between the trees and the City Hall

Here, in the background appears the old city of San Sebastián

The cathedral of Donostia can be better seen in this photo, where the City Hall appears too together with In front of it, the Alderdi Eder Gardens

Kursaal

After coming back to Donostia from Zarautz, we went for a walk and we could admire the Kursaal at night

The San Sebastian's Congress Centre is an amazing architectural built in 1999 by Rafael Moneo. In the Background a light arrives from the Mount Urgull

Wednesday, 29th july 2009

Donostia

Gipuzkoa square

Probably one of the most charming places in Donostia-San Sebastián is Gipuzkoa square, whose gardens appear full of small surprises. Donostia offers an oasis of peace in these romantic gardens, From this lovely square we went by bus to Hondarribi, a beautiful little town in the border with France with a wonderful old town

We came back to Donostia in the afternoon, so we could spent a good time until the evening, when we had to get on our coach to come back to Santander. From there we would catch our flight to Barcelona.

Old Quarter

For centuries, Donostia-San Sebastián was reduced to the group of streets located at the foot of Mount Urgull, what nowadays is known as the Old Quarter. The Old Quarter is the festive axis and a friendly area where the people from Donostia meet.

A typical street of the old quarter of San Sebastián. We walked along one of this streets to reach the Constitución Square

Constitución square in San Sebastián is surrounded by arcaded buildings. Among those buildings, we can stand out the former Town Hall and its emblematic clock

Everybody walking or sitting at the pavements cafés surprises at one detail: each balcony in the square is numbered. As Donostia didn't have a bullring, bullfights took place in this square, always lively, and the 147 balconies were the boxes

The two towers of the City Hall of San Sebastián stand out at one of the ends of La Concha Bay. This emblematic building keeps the same splendour as when it was the Grand Casino

Cathedral and New Quarter

After the demolition of the walls in 1863, Donostia-San Sebastián could extend between the Urumea River and La Concha Bay by means of the enlargement Antonio Cortázar designed. This romantic area, with several pedestrian axis blocked by the Boulevard and the Libertad Avenue, nowadays makes up the urban centre, characterised by the elegance of the buildings.

The 75 metres high tower of the Buen Pastor Cathedral in San Sebastián, the most striking element of Donostia's cathedral, can be seen from a good part of the city. This neogothic church was built between 1888 and 1897 using stone blocks extracted from Mount Igeldo's quarries

Inside the Buen Pastor Cathedral in San Sebastián we could observe all the characteristic elements of gothic style

The Buen Pastor Cathedral in San Sebastián dominates the Buen Pastor Square, with gardens and two outstanding twin buildings, the present headquarters of the Post Office and the Koldo Mitxelena Cultural Centre, at the back

On the left the current Post Office and, on the right, the Koldo Mitxelena Cultural Centre, are two twin buildings at the back of the Buen Pastor Cathedral in San Sebastián

Finally, other beautiful places you can visit in Spain are:

- Catalonia

- Granada