A Pleasant Little City

Friday morning dawned clear and sunny.  We walked over to the market in the old city, and got us some provisions for breakfast.  The Spanish ham, bread, pastries, and manchego cheese were wonderful, and the price was great.  The market itself was neat, with all sorts of butchers and bakers and fishmongers.  The seafood stalls were kept separate from the meat stalls, because there was definitely a bit of a smell.

We ate out on our patio, and then headed off to conquer Monte Urgull, which is more of a hill than a mountain.  Not quite 400 feet high, it is of significant historical importance to the city, but I won't bore you with tales of Napoleon and others.  Suffice it to say, San Sebastian's importance as a crossroads of south western Europe is underscored that there were five wars in 100 years that ranged through the city.

We stopped at a couple of the old gun batteries and were afforded good views, but the real views came at the top, from the Mota Castillo and the statue of Jesus that was added in 1950. 

The only problem was the sun was rising from the East (Editor's Note: um, you are surprised by this?  Blogger: Well, it's more complicated than that. . .), so taking photos of the city below was problematic.  Turns out afternoon would be the time to climb Urgull (no known relation to Urkel), but I did not realize that till we were up top.  Oh well, it was still neat.

After winding down the switchbacks to go down a different route, we headed past a school where we could hear children singing, and then see their colorful paintings on the outside wall.  Then we went into the Basilica of St. Mary and then the Church of San Vicente.

Along with that street, those two churches were the only two things in San Sebastian that the Brits didn't burn in 1813,  However, neither were that old or spectacular.  The Basilica was the more interesting of the two, and has built in the late 1700s.  There is a display of modern Catholic art, which was quite interesting.  The stained glass was nice, but did not seem very old.  Both churches only needed a short visit each.