San Sebastian City Breaks – Europe’s Pintxos Capital

I’m intrigued by the possibility of San Sebastian City Breaks, because I’ve been there two or three times but never managed to park up and have a good look around! Driving around Europe in a car, and northern Spain in particular, San Sebastian seems like a must visit, but in practice this is no destination for the casual driver. The one way system is a nightmare and the on street parking zones are perpetually full, so you end up being directed on a road out of the city again very soon. And yet San Sebastian has so much going for it. It’s a beautiful city by the sea, with grand old buildings and architectural heritage. It’s close to all the cider villages  where the famous sidra natural or Sagardoa is made. But most of all, San Sebastian is a European food capital, not just for the famous basque cuisine and the finest chefs in their michelin starred restaurants, but for the pintxos bars in the old quarter. Pintxos are the Basque version of tapas, little pieces of very tasty food designed to be eaten with drinks. In San Sebastian as in other cities, the custom is to stroll around several such bars, tasting one dish of the speciality in each. That sounds like a great way to spend a couple of hours in the evening to me.  

So back to the problem. If you cannot just drop in on San Sebastian ( Donostia in Basque)  while touring the area, then what’s the best way to visit the city? Probably you’d want to stay in a hotel in the city centre itself, but if you arrive by train bus or plane, then you don’t have a car  with which to explore the rest of the Basque country while you’re there very easily, so the answer to me seems to be short city breaks.  Fly in, stay for a long weekend, take in all the sights and experiences of Donostia – San Sebastian and then fly out again. So how convenient is the airport? Well the big airport is in Bilbao, but that’s a fair old way although I believe it’s possible to do day trips to San Sebastian and Biarritz by coach from Bilbao.
The Basque Country has its own local train network, called Euskotren. It is very cheap and there are departures every hour (more often if you don’t mind changing trains) but it is very slow – taking about 2h30 to get from Bilbao to San Sebastian. There are also regular buses throughout the day from Bilbao to San Sebastian, and due to the massive investment in roads all over Spain, the 100Km journey only takes about 1 hour  so this could be the best way to take a short city break in the city by the sea. Apart from Bilbao airport, San Sebastian also has it’s own small airport  names after it, but the location is in fact along the coast next to the French border near the medieval town of Hondarribia. The name of the airport is San Sebastian Fuenteraba, after the Spanish version of the name for Hondarribia, and there are no flights from the UK to San Sebastian Fuenteraba so you’d need to be arriving for your city breaks from somewhere else in Europe.

Technorati Tags: basque cuisine, Biarritz, cider, city break, city breaks, city by the sea, donostia san sebastian, EUROPE, european food, flight, Fuenteraba, Hondarribia, michelin starred restaurants, northern spain, san sebastian donostia, sidra, Spain, tasty food

My boyfriend and I are looking for bargain city breaks in Europe?

Hi there. My boyfriend and I are hoping to go on holiday somewhere in Europe to have a triple celebration (his birthday/valentines day/our 5 year anniversary). But everywhere I have looked seem to be quite expensive (£200 + for a few nights) and we are on quite a tight budget as you can tell! I have looked on lastminute.com and teletext holidays, along with other websites, but I’m wondering if anyone knows of any package deals/eurostar breaks etc on other sites? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

For £200 it would be a miracle to find a city break for two, as a European break means two return flights, which even with a budget airline company will cost about £120 minimum.

Although Sardinia can be cheap depending on where you stay, the flights there will usually cover most of the £200 anyway. (Eurostar is also extremely expensive which i have never really understood.)

Alternatively, what you could do is drive yourselves to Paris or Rouen (which would be cheaper and close enough to visit Paris during the day). Taking the Eurotunnel will set you back about £70 each way, depending on the time and date you go through it.

Otherwise, you’ll have to loosen the purse strings,

If not, somerset is quite nice this time of year…

Technorati Tags: budget, budget airline, city break, city breaks, city breaks in europe, EUROPE, eurotunnel, flight, lastminute, PARIS, return flights, Rouen, Sardinia, somerset

Last Minute Travel Deals

Pack your bags! It’s time to get away. Here are a few great ideas for that last summer hoorah!

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Technorati Tags: adventure, atlantis, cruise, deals, destination, flight, last, minute, nature, travel, trip, vacation, vegas, zoo

Where can I find true last minute city break?

Lastminute.com used to be great but their true last minute deals all seem to be winter sun now. I’m after a web site that offers last minute deals for places like Berlin, Budapest, Prague, Paris etc. Any ideas?

City breaks and last minute deals do not really go together. The reason is that a week in Tenriffe, say, is based on a charter flight and a contract hotel – both of which are highly perishable products and so it is better to get £10 than £0 for them – hence all the last minute stuff. A city break does not work like that, it is based on a contract rate hotel (which can be cheaper than the normal or “rack” rate) and flights at whatever price they can get. Now, the city break holiday unlike the cheapo Benidorm job is only arranged when someone wants one. If you want to go in the peak season (and now is the peak season for many cities – reason: all the business types are working flat out, conferences, exhibitions and so on) Hence the rather limited special offers.

Technorati Tags: benidorm, berlin, budapest, city, city breaks, deals, flight, lastminute, PARIS, prague, prague paris, Tenriffe, winter sun