San Sebastián in January

I visited northern Spain this summer and can tell you about some places I especially enjoyed. I can only speculate on what the conditions will be like in January.

Barcelona is fabulous. Check historical weather to be sure, but I suspect it will be a bit more moderate than the Basque Country. For indoor sights you have a lot of museums and well as a significant number of modernista sights. I was there for 10 days and didn't have time for everything I wanted to see.

Girona has a lovely, large historic district with a number of indoor sights as well as the obvious strolling possibilities. It will not close for the winter. Definitely worth 2+ nights. Don't miss the art museum. There are side-trips possible to Figures and Cadaques, probably mainly for the Dali sites; Cadaques is a fishing-town-turned-beach resort, so I'm guessing it would be dead in the winter. I only changed buses in Figueres so can't comment on it.

There's lots of pretty, dramatic countryside in the Basque Country. It's much more interesting to travel through than the area around Madrid, for example.

My favorite side-trip from San Sebastian was to Hondarribia, a coastal town virtually on the French border. It's a place of some size, so buses should still be running pretty frequently in January (be careful about schedules on weekends, especially Sundays, though). Hondarribia has both a cute fishermen's quarter full of restaurants (don't know how many will be open in January) and an historic district on a hill. There's a good bit to see because you have the two areas of interest. This would be one of my top recommendations for a Basque Country side-trip.

On another day I used a combination of the slow, local FEVE train and buses to go to Zarautz, Getaria, and Zumaia. They are all attractive, historic coastal towns, fairly small. I don't know how much will be going on there in January. Zarautz, especially, is known for its wide, sandy beach, which would surely require a wetsuit in the winter.

Bilbao is worth decamping from San Sebastian for 2 or 3 nights, I think. You have the Guggenheim and the Bellas Artes Museum; I missed the latter because of a strike this summer, but that appears to be resolved. The good-sized historic district is attractive, and what I call the "downtown area" has lots of interesting, attractive early 20th century buildings. The city seems quite affluent, and I'm sure some advance planning will turn up interesting restaurant possibilities. You can definitely do a tapas crawl here. A sidetrip to the coastal town of Bermeo is worthwhile for a walk-around. I've mentioned 4 small coastal towns (Hondarribia's in a different category); unless you're running out of things to do, you don't need to try to see all of them, but I did enjoy them all.

I visited Viktoria-Gasteiz from Bilbao as a day-trip, but it's worth overnighting in. There's a large historic district (gotta love a city that calls its historic center the "medieval almond" because of its shape on a map) and two or three worthwhile museums. A feature of the historic area that I really appreciated was the outdoor escalators; they make it comparatively easy to get around that very hilly district.

A big "Yes!" to LaGuardia. Beautiful old hill town located near the La Rioja vineyards. I don't drink wine, but I noticed a lot of winebars in the town. Very atmospheric. Should be a nice place to spend the night. It's on the bus line from Viktoria-Gasteiz to Logrono, so it can be reached by public transportation. For some reason Rome2Rio.com doesn't know about that bus line. I probably learned about it by Googling.

I only changed buses in Logrono; I didn't have time to walk around. I gather from my guidebooks that there's an historic district worth seeing.

Over in the Pamplona direction, Olite and Estella have points of historic interest and are picturesque. They are fairly lightly visited, though I believe Estella gets some pilgrimage traffic.

Thank you for your thoughtful response! This is incredibly helpful. Did you rent a car at all? Or were you able to get around easily with public transport?

I'm a solo traveler and can't drive a manual-transmission car. And I'm cheap, very cheap. So only public transportation for me. But you should know that I'm retired and able to take very long trips, so--as I put it--I can be "philosophical" about how long it takes to move around. That said, most of those side-trips were pretty short. I covered every place I mentioned visiting in the Basque Country (plus San Sebastian) except Laguardia in 8 days; I did Laguardia later in my trip as a (long, awkward) day-trip from Pamplona. The distances are not great, and the Basque Country seems to have a more developed transportation network than some other parts of Spain. The availability of the FEVE train adds an option that is very helpful for moving around the coastal area.

Among the Basque destinations Viktoria-Gasteiz, and especially Laguardia, may take a bit longer to reach. They are both worth the effort. It's when you start trying to connect a city in Province X to a city in Province Y that it's likely to get tricky. So Olite or Estella would be challenging directly from the Basque Country, possibly requiring you to go first to Pamplona. Logrono might well mean a lengthy layover in Viktoria (but you'd be OK if you were staying in Viktoria, because there's that bus link). Basically, Spain's transportation works well to get to another province if you're going to or from Madrid; otherwise, you'll encounter a lot of two-leg trips.

The buses, incidentally, are very comfortable; you shouldn't hesitate to use them. ALSA and some other bus companies have ticket-vending machines that are easy to use. The ALSA machines, at least, have the option to print the schedule for your origin and destination. I loved being able to walk away with all the bus information for my next stop (assuming I could get there via ALSA).

At least some of the cars on the FEVE trains have unpadded plastic seats, but I found them perfectly OK for the moderate amount of time I was on those trains. I don't think Rome2Rio.com knows about FEVE, so you may need to Google a bit persistently to turn up English-language online information about those trains. It may be on the Renfe website somewhere; all I could find quickly just now was in Spanish, but the schedule look-up function should still be usable. The trains are pretty frequent; they're used for local commuting.

By the way, one place recommended in all my guidebooks that I did not get to was Lekeitio. Check it out; you may want to try to fit it in. It's on the coast between Bilbao and San Sebastian, and all sources say it's picturesque. I'm not sure which city it's most easily approached from. I'm pretty sure Rick mentions it in his book, and transportation is covered there.

To the responder from DC: Thank you so much for taking the time to share so much information! My husband and I, both retired, have traveled fairly extensively in Europe (including Spain for two weeks); however, we have not been to the Basque area of Spain. We are contemplating a trip there for mid-September 2017. Questions:
1) You indicated you were there in the summer. Exactly what part of the summer. How was the weather? Did you feel overrun with tourists and those making pilgrimages?

2) We also use public transportation so your comments regarding the bus and train network were appreciated. Do you have any recommendations for lodging? Did you do any hiking? How about bugs? Need mosquito spray?
3) Are you a Spanish speaker? We are not; but we have never really found our lack of the local language much of an issue. It seems most everyone over 25 speaks some English.
4) What airport did you fly in and out of? We are contemplating flying into Toulouse and out of Porto.
Thanks much for any extra information you can supply,
Elle

I was in the Basque Country June 13 - 20, then I visited Laguardia on June 24 from Pamplona. I made a point of hitting the area before July, because I thought it would be somewhat less touristy then and hotels might be a bit cheaper. San Sebastian was the place that felt most tourist-clogged while I was there. It's a nice city, but Bilbao's attractive, too, and aside from the Guggenheim it was far less overrun. Laguardia's a small town and there were lots of people there as well, but I happened to hit the day of a local festival, and I'm sure that made a big difference in the number of visitors.

I didn't particularly notice pilgrim traffic in the Basque Country, but I did encounter pilgrims in other parts of northern Spain. I think San Sebastian gets enough general tourist traffic that it sort of swamps any pilgrims who may be in the city.

I suggest checking the historical weather records on wunderground.com to see the range that might be expected around the time you are likely to visit. I found the area cool with some rain. Perhaps not quite as cool as I had feared, but then in recent years it has been uncommonly hot just about everywhere. I have a feeling the area around Viktoria might be cooler and wetter than the coast, but I haven't checked the weather stats to verify that. It wasn't cold in Viktoria, but I got quite wet even with an umbrella, and it was cool enough that I wished I had worn my long johns that day.

I never saw or heard a mosquito during the entire trip between mid-May and mid-August, but I'm one of those lucky people who doesn't seem to be very attractive to the critters, so my experience may not have been typical.

I only took one significant rural hike (and it was nowhere near the Basque Country), just a lot of walking in the cities and towns. But the countryside is lovely, and I think the September weather would be conducive to hikes. You'd likely need rain gear. The FEVE railroad could be very helpful in getting back to your starting point after day hikes if you plan your walks along its path.

I speak some very basic Spanish, but I found that what came out of my mouth was often part Spanish, part Italian, so I'm not sure it was very helpful. The education level in the Basque Country is quite high, and you'll usually be able to find an English speaker when you need one. Basque is the native language of a fair percentage of the local residents, but everyone knows Spanish as well. The prevalence of Basque does mean that in less touristy areas, menu space may be given to Basque + Spanish rather than English + Spanish, so it's a good idea to have access to a translation app for dealing with menus. There's a good chance the server will be able to provide some basic information, but he will rarely have time to stand at your table and translate the entire menu!

Since I was covering most of central and northern Spain, I flew into Madrid and out of Barcelona. Before committing to your arrival and departure airports or planning a multi-country trip, visit the Deutsche Bahn web site to check on train connections. You might also want to look at Rome2Rio to see whether there is a useful bus route. Travel will be fairly slow since you won't be on the major lines radiating out from Madrid. I just took a quick look, and Toulouse seems to have good connections to San Sebastian. Porto is a completely different situation. You'd probably want to fly unless you plan to visit Galicia in addition to the Basque Country.

I'll be glad to answer other questions, but we should create a separate thread so Bri doesn't keep getting notifications every time we post.

Edited to add: Forgot about the hotel question. I was making a lot of side-trips, so I opted to stay near the bus or train station. Most folks would prefer to be closer to the historic districts. I found San Sebastian fairly pricey.