(Donostia to Hendaia)
We paid €2.90 each for an international ticket on the Euskotren train from San Sebastián to Hendaye. This must be the cheapest ticket for cross border travel in the world. The journey is about one hour long. We couldn’t buy tickets ahead of time; you have to pitch up in person.
Before walking to the Amara station we went out to grab breakfast in Vincent’s Cafe. It is named after the saint, honoured in the enormous church opposite, not the cafe owner.
This was our last opportunity to sample the famous Basque Cheesecake, so we did. Cheesecake for breakfast? Why not – we’re on holiday! We asked the waiter how you say cheesecake in Spanish and he gave us the answer we expected “Torta de queso”. “How do you say it in Basque?” we asked. He hesitated for a moment. “Cheesecake” he said. Here is the said cheesecake next to Jane for scale.
Unfortunately, before the cheesecake, Jane had ordered an Açai fruit bowl – which turned out to be mainly Açai icecream… oh well! Before setting off for the station, we walked around the old part of San Sebastián and around the old fort above the marina – despite a dire forecast, the weather held!
On arrival in Hendaye, we’d hoped to change our very early train to Paris, but the ticket office was closed over the bank holiday, and the online booking options still show all of the Eurail tickets reservations sold out later in the day. Annoying, but at least we have a booking on the 7:05! As we’d collected lots of dirty washing and we had an hour or so to spare before our check-in, we headed for the nearest laundry.
Hendaye is a bit of a come down from the glamour of San Sebastián. But we got our stuff washed and mostly dried. Jane went across the road to Lidl while I stood guard. Everyone in Lidl was speaking Spanish but the signage and check-out was all in French. The very helpful chap at the launderette was speaking Syrian Arabic – he was delighted we could say Shukran. And when we arrived at our accommodation (as it started to rain) the host preferred to speak in Spanish rather than French. Basque is also quite widely spoken and the signage is bilingual. So it’s a real melting pot of language.
Just as we arrived at our accommodation, the promised rain started coming down in earnest, and we thought we’d be confined to barracks for the rest of the day. We looked up a few of the places we’d been on the Camino and there will be some very wet pilgrims out there today! Fortunately it cleared up after two hours. Just enough time for us to settle in and have a picnic lunch.
As usual there was a bit of over-selling of the accommodation. This was the terrace overlooking the river! Technically, you can just see a bit of water if you stand up and know it’s there. However, we were just 80m from a lovely riverside boardwalk unknown to Apple Maps, which took us alongside the estuary, past where we need to go for our early train, and eventually to the beach.
Hendaye is famous for surfing, and they were out in force, despite the weather.
Heading home before next downpour, we invested in a very nice, large umbrella, so we don’t get drenched tomorrow. We’ll endeavour not to leave it on the train!
An interesting bit aviation geography of this area is San Sebastián airport. It has been built on reclaimed land in the Bidassoa river estuary so it’s virtually in France, with San Sebastián a 13 mile drive to the west.
We could see the airport from the boardwalk. While we were in the town a plane came in. It was deafening! It was so low you could see the rivets on the fuselage! We wanted to see one take off, and as we walked back along the boardwalk we were lucky to catch a perfect view.
Despite the rain, the enforced rest indoors, the stint in the launderette and the train journey, we’ve clocked up 16km today.
We capped the day off with an unexpectedly good meal at a hotel around the corner. We went local as we didn’t want to get soaking wet if the weather played out as forecast. Fantastic French cuisine: duck, grilled fish of the day, asparagus, and an indulgent and very large chocolate and miso crème brûlée. So Jane has had 3 desserts today!
Tomorrow we catch the 7:05am train to Paris. So an early start.
