Spain - driving Barcelona to San Sebastain

Driving from Barca to SS, has anyone done it? Places not to be missed?

Update: here’s the trip report.

City / Nights
Barcelona / 3
Jaca / 1
St. Jean Luz / 2
San Sabastian / 3
Bilbao / 2

General observations:
People in Spain are a life loving, social animals, and very active. They eat more cured ham than all of Italy, more french bread than the french, love gelato, exercise like california’s, and the country side looks like Italy, France, and Switzerland all wrapped into one. They don’t eat chicken, I don’t know why, but I never saw it on the menu anywhere in 12 days. There are flags EVERYWHERE in Spain, they’re just not the Spanish national flag… The roads in Spain are the best I’ve driven in Europe and I’m not talking just the big highways but even the backroads where amazing. DONT DRIVE THE BIG “A” ROADS (autovia). Sure, they are the quickest way to get around but you don’t see anything. You’ll get very good at roundabouts; they have a lot of them. You need a GPS to drive here, the road signage is poor at best for various reasons like; every road had 3 different numbers (A1, N-634, & 2375) and it’s impossible to follow the road just by the numbers. The names of towns, streets, and sites are spelled in various languages especially in the Basque. Paper maps in Spain are “no bueno”. But it’s a blast!!!

Barcelona - great place. stayed at a great little hotel (Pau) right next to the main plaza catalonya next to old town. What a great place to explore and get lost. Lots of walking here; saw the Sagrada Familia, the beaches, and a few other attractions but the action is in the old town. With a couple of open markets worth visiting and 100’s of bars and tapas joins. Come to find out Pintxos are the the main course, a style of tapas, which we lived on for the 2 weeks.

Jaca - stayed of the big road and took the back way through Huesca to get to Jaca. AWESOME. We visited an old castillo on the way Castillo Loarre (killer photo op) and then hit San Juan de la Pena monastery hanging off a cliff (crazy drive!) but just took pix for 10 minutes and bolted. Stayed at Renia Felicia (good place) and walked into old town. Very small and quiet this time of year, after ski season and no summer crowds). Great little town to walk around for the evening and have a few pintxos but one night is enough.

St. Jean Pied de Port, FR - Start of the Camino de Santiago. First, we drove an amazing road to get here from Jaca, headed west towards Pamplona then jump straight north from Lumbier N-150. Oh BOY!!! This is a road you see on the tour de france when they’re hill climbing. Saw maybe two other cars and 30 cyclists the entire way. This town is high on the cute and adorable scale and the Camino was on my bucket list, just to visit, not walk! Great place to shoot pictures, have lunch but there’s not much else other than a very small, cute, 3 block old town. Probably need to avoid this in the summer… It must get SLAMMED.

Sare, FR - extremely small town with zero parking, pass and headed to the La Train de Rhune, a train that rides you up the side of the mountain to the peak. Must be incredible because it was holiday week for Paris schools and EVERYONE in Paris was trying to get on this train. Bummed but we passed. Great views.

St Jean du Luz - We stayed here two nights and used it to day trip around coastal france. Pass on this and just stay in San Sebastian and day trip to Biarritz and Bayonne. Biarritz is like La Jolla, CA only 4 times the size. This is lifestyles of the rich and famous. Bayonne has a big old town area but it was a bit run down compared to others, still nice to visit. Also VERY high on the list to day trip is Hondarriba, right on the French/Spain border. Incredibility quaint place. Gets high points for two castles that are hotels, bravo, and very little commercialized shopping, just local joints.

San Sebastian - Wow - this is the real deal. incredible beaches, beautiful ocean side walks, old town that kicks butt, and people that love working out, eating, and drinking. Base camp for 3 days and rightfully earns its popular reputation. High energy. A+

Rioja - Guardian and Haro. Guardia is a huge winner! Again, we drove to Rioja not using the toll roads, coming down from the mountain into the valley. Superb drive but 2 1/2 hours so we took the toll road back to SS and it was basically boring but only 90 minutes. Beautiful little hill top walled village surrounded by grape vineyards, true gem. I could do a big write up on this but this document is the best out there for planning your trip. The best resource for Rioja. http://www.maribelsguides.com/mg_larioja.pdf

Bilbao - Big city but the old town is very nice with the plaza holding about 7 or 8 great little pintxo places. We did the “circuit” twice in the plaza and walked the entire area. Lots of pintxo bars but also more sit down restaurants than anywhere else we had seen. Great drive on the coastal road from SS. Oh, and the Guggenheim is here, neat place.

Yes! It’s a great drive.

I took a route to hit Rioja - the area between Laguardia and Haro is beautiful. Logrono is also a fun place for a tapas crawl.

Though I didn’t stop anywhere, on this route there is beautiful scenery when you cross over the Cantabrian mountain ridge. It’s Basque country, and just lush and green. I’m sure there is someplace nice to stop around here.

We did a fantastic drive from Barcelona to San Sebastian, ultimately. Drove first up the Costa Brava to Cadaques, which is a beautiful, picturesque town where Salvador Dali lived and painted. We stayed one night there, eating at a fantastic restaurant called Compartir run by ex-el Buli people/cooks. The took an incredible hike out to the lighthouse next morning.

After Cadaques, we headed into France, via Toulouse and Carcaconnes, ending up in the Pays Basque for a few nights. Despite a lot of rain throughout the Basque country (both France and Spain - this is very common), it was gorgeous country to drive and walk through - lush and green, with mist rising above the trees in the mountains. We visited some wine producers in Jurancon (incredible views of the snow-capped mountains), and stayed near St Jean Pied-de-Port. There’s a terrific producer of pork products near there, that raises Basque pigs (bunny pigs, we call them, because of their ears), named Pierre Otezia - worth a visit.

Then headed into Spain again, through more green mountains, and stayed one night not too far from Haro, visited some wineries, and finally up to San Sebastian. We didn’t visit Bilbao on this particular trip, but have several other times. Very nice city, worth a visit for the museum, and because it is close to Etxebarri, which can’t be missed. When you drive from San Sebastian to Bilbao, stop at Etxebarri for lunch if possible.

Whole trip was about 10 days. Fantastic route, food, wine, with the right amount of time in each place. Happy to give specifics if you PM me.

Sarah

My wife and I drove the most direct route from San Sebastián to Barcelona and found little of interest. However, while in San S we spent a day touring the Basque region by car and found it most interesting and beautiful.

Thanks Robert,

Looks like the neat stuff is wondering the backroads, which we enjoy.

Jaca seems like the first stop out of Barca for the night, then drive north over the Pyrenees into the southwest corner of France.

Once in SS, plan is to day trip west and south to wine country in Haro.

We travelled to Barcelona last year and obviously it was fantastic! The Basque Country is also beautiful and very special too. We’d like to visit a different area this summer so I’d like some recommendations for a wine area in Spain.

If you were in basque then you were next to the best region, Rioja.

Here’s a list of other areas. I’d recommend starting a new topic in the travel forum specifically around Spain wine regions, you’ll get more action and won’t get thread drift here.

Do whatever is necessary to get to Girona for dinner at Cellar de can Roca.

I’ve heard good things about both! It’s the #1 restaurant on Tripadvisor. http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187499-d996088-Reviews-El_Celler_de_Can_Roca-Girona_Province_of_Girona_Catalonia.html


We decided to head west from Barça along the southern Pyrenees (spending more time in Spain) versus the northern route straight into France via Girona.

The world is too big!

Agreed, we did the same. After enjoying San Sebastian and environs immensely, we just cranked it to Barcelona. There are motorcycle police and speed cameras along the route, and I was caught by one of the latter fairly close to Barcelona. Fwiw, my slightly dated tasting notes are here: Dining in Spain - Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, Aranda de Duero, Haro, San Sebastian, Barcelona - Travel, Wine Tourism, and Restaurants Forum - WineBerserkers

Cheers,
Andrew

Great resource for touring Rioja and tasting.

Great guide! If you do end up or have time in Haro (P.37), “Las Duelas” is a wonderful restaurant. We ate there twice and thoroughly enjoyed it both times.


Cheers!
Marshall

Laguardia was amazing!! thanks. We stopped everywhere.

How’s this for a special moment, dad playing with his kids in Guardia, Spanish style.

I’ve updated the top post with a few of places we hit up like this little gem buried on the coast between Bilbao and SS. Gaztelugatxe. Enjoy the hike down because the hike back up is murder.