Bay of Biscane

I have been excited almost half a year since I put the booking button for San Sebastián half marathon. Planned for a long weekend in the Basque county and it all started with a flight from Zürich to Bilbao. With great hospitality I got welcomed onboard at Edelweiss for the two hour trip. In my opinion a very nice airline for economy travel in Europe where you can watch movies at your device if you have not downloaded any yourself and you also get a small snack.

A 20 minutes bus ride from the airport and I walked out in a sunny Bilbao. Felt like this is a place I love.

Bilbao

It was my first visit to Bilbao and I was in exploring mode. First stop was ice cream. To my excitement they had dulce de leche so the city place already had collected a few plus.

I had an easy and relaxed day but with many walked steps. Strolled around the streets, looked into some small shops. Enjoyed. Soaked up the sun. Stopped for coffee and read my book. I liked the city. A lot. The vibe. The buildings. The hills. It was really my kind of place. Nice parks with a life inside. Wanted to stop by at Zara for some shopping but it overcrowded so I headed to the old town.

The old town was cozy. Touristy but also a gentle mix of locals. Young and old. Playing kids on the streets. People sitting outside eating the popular pinxos. My kind of place.

Myself craved a sangria so stopped by at one place and satisfied myself. Did some people watching before it got quite late and I walked back to the hotel along the river. Another nice Spanish city.

The next day I was thinking of a shake out run before the half marathon the following day. But no. The bed won and I slept 11 hours. Instead I went to a breakfast place which happened to be one of the more popular ones.Had a açaí bowl that I could write home about at a place called ARVO Coffee & Plants before going down to the river to get some more sun because 11 the clouds and rain would start arriving according to the weather app.

I had though made a plan to hide for the bad weather. A visit to Guggenheim museum. if you go I recommend booking tickets since they sell out.

An amazing building from outside and also the inside took me by surprise. I liked it. Some to arty exhibitions but most of them I really enjoyed especially one AI simulated city and a light room.

When I was finished the rain started to pour down so I was lucky to hide inside the bus to San Sebastián for 1,5 hour.

San Sebastián

This was my second time in San Sebastián. The first time I was there for a workation and I wanted to revisit the beach town. For the food and the ambience. I had planned for sun, yoga and maybe some surf (would be nice to try again) but I didn’t even need to think about that. Wet I got enough just walking a few meters outside. Cold also since the wind made the 17 degrees to feel like 5.

I would lie if I said I had my best time. It was okey and I met some nice people on this solo trip. That made up for it. And the food and the half marathon. I’m a sunshine person and freezing kills me.

San Sebastián is a foodies paradise and I had some very nice pinxos and wine here. There are hundreds of these cozy bars all around the city so it is perfect place to indulge. The vibes are also great and ideally combined with beach time or hikes on costal routes. Now focus was instead to keep warm, drink coffee and take it easy visit small local stores and not do so much.

I was running San Sebastián half marathon. I had a goal to do sub 1:40 which I only done two times before so I gave it all in. The weather was against us but I won. Very windy, pouring rain half of it and cold. I made it in 1:37:40 and was super happy with the time. There was a lot of people out watching and about 7000 runners from all around the world. If you want to run the race I recommend to sign up early. But best of all was the hot shower after.

In the afternoon the sun finally came out. The city changed and it was just great the hours it lasted. It lasted though not forever but I captured well the time. The city is still a place I always can come back to and maybe I will come here for a third visit once and combine with some other places at the Spanish North coast. There are a lot of interesting places to see and explore but preferably with car.

/ Pernilla that love to explore the world