Basque Country

Ibis is a budget chain throughout Europe. The rooms are basic, but clean. A quick check of the Ibis Bilbao Centro for the end of March showed a price of $57. Ibis Irun (San Sebastián) showed $50. The 2nd hotel is 9 miles from San Sebastián center. Check booking.com for other choices.

Ibis Bilbao Centro will be fine as it´s centrally located, but Ibis Irún is quite far from Donostia-San Sebastian. Lodging in San Sebastian is quite expensive, so you may have to find places outside the city and get to SS on public transport (which is very good). Bilbao will have more offer on budget lodging.

I have a couple questions to add:

My S.O. and I (both around 60) will be spending about a 6-8 days in this area in September/early October. This is as part of a planned approximately 24-28 day car trip: Fly in to Barcelona and immediately rent a car, travel up to the Dordogne in slow stages (about 3 two night rural stops ending with 4 nights in Sarlat), spend two nights in Bordeaux, travel to Basque country, stop for two days in Saragossa on the way back to Barcelona, spend our final 4 days or so in Barcelona before flying home.

1. How do people recommend dividing up our time in Basque country (both French and Spanish)?
2. Where would you recommend staying?
3. Would it make sense to return the car once we get over the border into Spain, taking the train for the last stages of our trip? Or would that be inefficient? (I don't have any issue either driving or taking the train in Europe, generally).
4. Any other comments or recommendations?

Matt, please copy and paste your post into a new thread so font-r doesn't get notified every time someone responds to your very different question.

Thanks.

For a trip in March (seriously off-season), I don't think font-r is going to have a problem finding a conveniently-located single room under US $100. I don't know the exact dates, but I found some options that looked good (based on ratings; I didn't read reviews) on booking.com for 3 nights beginning March 25.

Thank you for your responses. I will be going towards the end of the month of March. Just found (and booked) a very small 2 star hotel in Bilbao for a great price! It's called Casual Bilbao Gurea. Coincidentally, I stayed in a "Casual" hotel in Valencia two summers ago and really liked it.