San Sebastián: 4 day itinerary

In this post we lay out what we see as the ideal itinerary for 4 days in San Sebastián for any lovers of food and wine.

• Day 1 – A full day guided tour of the Rioja wine region including lunch. Follow this up with small plates for dinner.
• Day 2 – Beach day that includes a swim, kayak or ferry to an island off the main beach. Spend the evening on a pintxos crawl round town.
• Day 3 – A beautiful walk to Getaria for a fantastic fish lunch, followed by Txakoli tasting. Your choice of many dinner options, all delicious.
• Day 4 – Beach, surfing, and the best spanish omelette of your life for lunch. Cocktails and more incredible food that evening.

We give you details of our favourite places to eat, both small plates/pintxos (Basque Country’s version of tapas) and sit down restaurants. Click here to skip right to restaurants. 

If this sounds like your kind of trip, read on.

Itinerary

San Sebastián is a food lover’s paradise. The insane density of quality restaurants and bars means you can always find somewhere amazing to eat. We cannot recommend it enough for anyone who loves basing their holidays around food and wine.

In this article we want to lay out what we see as the ideal itinerary for a trip to San Sebastián for anyone who loves their food.

San Sebastián isn’t a huge city, and we think that 4 whole days is the perfect length of stay there. This gives you enough time to explore and relax, without running out of things to do and getting bored. More importantly, this gives you plenty of time to try all the amazing food the area has to offer.

Below we lay out what each day could look like, ensuring you have time to eat, explore, relax, and then eat some more. Feel free to mix up the order of these days as you wish!

Day 1

Spend a day on a guided wine tour. San Sebastián is not too far from the Rioja wine region, and a number of group and private tours can be booked from San Sebastián. We booked this one. There were 4 of us in the group and we opted for a private tour which came to about 150 Euros each. It can get a bit cheaper as your group size increases. 

Whilst a little expensive we think this was absolutely money well spent. It took about 90 minutes to drive to the first of the wineries in the morning, but then once there it didn’t take too long between each. We visited about 5 in total and got to try lots of wine at each, you definitely get your money’s worth! What was really great was that our tour guide selected which wineries to take us to on the day based on what we told him we liked in the car. There is no exact route they take, they build the day bespoke to you. We tried some incredible wines and bought a few bottles to have back at the apartment later in the holiday.

The tour also included lunch. Our particular guide offered us a choice of venue:

1. We could go to a venue very popular with tourists with great views over vineyards in a beautiful setting. 
2. A more ‘rough and ready’ restaurant where we would sit inside and eat with locals. He advised that the food here would be more authentic and better.

Now we can appreciate either choice. A beautiful setting in the sun is always lovely, but we always follow our stomachs so opted for option 2. We were not disappointed. We had so much food, and it was fantastic. Delicious soup typical of the region, incredible grilled meats, and a huge desert. We were stuffed, and most of us had a nap in the car on the way home. 

We have done a lot of wine tours in our time but this one was undoubtedly our favourite so far. The amount of food and wine, and the quality of it all, meant it was a foodies dream.

It’s a lot of food and you may need a lie down when you get back at around 17:00. We are big eaters so we did need food later on, but see how you feel! We recommend going out for pintxos or small plates that night as you can eat as much or as little as you need.

Day 2

Make this a beach day and head to La Concha. The great thing about this beach is there is an island called Santa Clara just off it.

The island is great for sunbathing at, walking around and exploring, or just enjoying the view of the mainland. It’s also great for jumping off the side into the water (about 3 metres high), which goes down particularly well with all the kids. There is also a bar on the island which serves simple food and drinks.

Now there are a few ways to get to the island:

1. Get the ferry. It costs 7 euros and takes 30 minutes. See here.
2. Rent a kayak or a paddle board. We found this place renting them on the east end of the bay.
3. Swim! This is what we did and it was a lot of fun. It is about 350 metres depending on tides and where you set off from. Make sure you make your way round to the West side of the bay because it is a considerably shorter distance to the island from that side, and there is less sea traffic too! You will need to figure out how you transport your phones and wallets, etc. We actually managed to rent some dry bags from the rental place. This was a lot of fun and something that we had never done before.

The above is certainly not an all day activity but a really nice thing to do. We recommend spending the rest of the day relaxing on the beach. There are some nice bars nearby on the eastern side too. We found this cool bar called Akerbeltz, which had a great range of craft beers. If you want even more relaxing there is also a spa overlooking the beach!

After a rather relaxing day here we thoroughly recommend having a big evening Pintxos crawling! We list our favourite places later in this article! For all the Pintxos places worth their salt you will probably have to queue for 10/15 minutes, but trust us it’s worth it!

Day 3

Head to the nearby town of Getaria. This place has arguably some of the best seafood restaurants in the world, although there is no argument in our minds! 

Not only are you in for many culinary delights, the journey to Getaria is great too. We thoroughly recommend you get a bus or train from San Sebastián to Zarautz, and then walk from Zarautz to Getaria. This way you get to walk  a beautiful walk along the sea wall with incredible views of the mountains and out to sea. It takes about an hour to walk, and you will have earned your lunch.

Alternatively you can get public transport all the way to Getaria.

Once you are there, options abound. Make sure you have fish, you won’t regret it. And Turbot is a real speciality of the area!

So where should you go?

If you want you could go to Elkano, one of the best restaurants in the world (number 22  at time of writing according to Michelin). You will need to book way in advance and it will be a very expensive meal. We haven’t been so cannot comment directly, but we have no doubt it would be an incredible experience and are very keen to go one day.

Alternatively there is Kaia Kaipe – another Michelin starred restaurant. We have not eaten here either but it is meant to be amazing. You will still need to book in advance, but it will be much easier to get a spot. Still an expensive meal out, but if you are willing to spend a bit we know you will have some of the best fish of your life.

We actually ate at Politena, and we loved it! It’s more relaxed than the previous 2 options, really it’s a bar that does food. We booked a couple of days ahead of time with no issue. This is certainly less fancy and a lot more affordable, but that is not to say you won’t have incredible fish. We had the BBQ grilled Turbot and both agreed we had never had anything like it.

There are plenty of other places to go as well, so feel free to have a Google if none of the above suit. Just make sure you go!

In Getaria I also recommend finding your way up to a Txakoli winery in the town. This is a local fizzy white wine, and you can do tastings. We didn’t book and tried our luck just walking up to Gainza Txakolina, as this was the only one we could get to without a cab. It was still a bit of a walk up a hill, so we were thrilled when they had someone free to do a tasting for us. The wine was delicious and the views incredible. We bought (some more) wine to have back at the apartment! We would recommend that you try and book wherever you go to avoid disappointment. 

That evening see how you feel. You will need food but booking a restaurant or going out for more pintxos would both work. You might prefer a proper sit down after all that walking!

Day 4

On this last day we recommend another beach day! Head to Gros, the other main beach in town and do surfing. You can rent boards there as well as get lessons. This beach feels less crowded than the other one, and has bigger waves (always important for surfing) for those who like to mess about in choppier water.

Please please make sure you go for lunch at Bar Zabaleta. This is a very relaxed bar just off the beach front and, whilst it doesn’t look like much from the outside, it serves fantastic food at a very reasonable price. The tomato salad and the Spanish tortilla were the best we have ever had. They have a number of other dishes on the menu, but those were the standouts for us. It is a very authentic place to go and have lunch.

After your day on the beach why not head out to town to one of the many cocktail bars and then continue your culinary adventures either at a restaurant or by treating yourselves to pintxos again?

So where should you eat?

As we have talked about, you have 2 main options for your evening meals in San Sebastián. You can either do pintxos or book a place for a sit down meal.

PINTXOS

You cannot go to San Sebastián without doing at least one night of pintxos crawling. Pintxos are essentially small bites of food, often served on a piece of bread. There are so many different variations that you can try from steak, to sardines, to foie gras, to croquettes. This list goes on and on, and you will not get bored.

We think a good pintxos crawl includes going to at least three different venues over the course of the evening, having a small bite and a drink at each. However, how many places you go and how much you eat at each is up to you, we just like trying everything we can! It is more than feasible to set up shop in one pintxos bar that you like and just spend the evening there.

Here are a list of pintxos places we loved:

• Gandarias. This place is actually also a restaurant which you can book if you like. We just turned up and queued for 15 mins to sit outside and have pintxos. We loved the fillet steak and the prawn ones, but all were delicious. They also serve Ribera del Duero red wine here, which is always Tom’s favourite.
• La cuchara de San Telmo. Not exactly a pintxos bar, more a place that serves small plates to share. It is still very much a bar, and if you are placed inside it can be a little cramped, but has a great atmosphere. The food here is astounding, without doubt our favourite place on the trip. The black pudding is like no other (and even people who don’t like black pudding agreed it was delicious), and the pork was insane. Make sure you go!
• Bar Sport. A small, very authentic feeling sports bar that does exceptional pintxos. You will need to put your name down and queue, but there is a reason for this. You won’t be disappointed.
• Gorriti Taberna. As authentic as it gets. No one behind the bar spoke English, so it can involve lots of pointing and hand gesturing, but it’s worth it. It’s full of locals, and they go there because they know it has incredible food and is great value.
• La Viña. Another place that you can book for a sit down meal if you like, but also does pintxos and small plates. We had the croquettes and the prawn spring rolls here and ordered seconds of each! However the star of the show here is the Basque Cheesecake, arguably the best in the world. It was incredible. Either go here later in the evening to have as dessert, or even go in the morning like we did and have it for breakfast!
• Sirimiri. For something a little different head here for jazz, cocktails and modern pintxos. Delicious food that is a little different to the more traditional places.
• Borda Berri. Top class pintxos. They also do larger dishes too if you want to sit down for something more substantial. We recommend heading to this place early if you want to go as it gets busy fast!

There are plenty of other places to go, and many of them are delicious. We couldn’t make our way through them all in the time we had. There are 2 things we think you should bear in mind when it comes to the pintxos places.

1. You will need to go up to the bar to order at a lot of them, so if you are sat at a table waiting for a while to be served it’s probably because of that.
2. If you walk past a place that is very lit up, with a vast array of pintxos on display under bright white lighting, avoid like the plague. These are tourist traps and the food is both over priced and generally rubbish. We learnt this the hard way.

RESTAURANTS

So what if you fancy a sit down meal? Well there are plenty of places you can do that too. For those of you inclined to experience more fine dining, there are many establishments both in town and slightly further out. We would recommend you conduct some thorough research to find the exact type of place you are looking for, given you will likely be spending a fair bit.

We opted to go more casual whilst we were there. As mentioned above, places like Gandarias and La Viña are great options, but worth booking.

We personally loved Bodega Donostiarra. It is worth calling and seeing if you can book as it can be a little hard to get in. We went mid evening and then sat outside having a couple of drinks until a table became available. We weren’t too hungry so this was ok.

La Cepa de Bernardo does traditionally delicious food. Great meats and fantastic fish, it has Jamon Serrano legs hanging from the ceiling. It also has an incredibly extensive wine collection, never a bad thing!

Anyway, there are so many great restaurants here, these are just a few options. You can do a lot of fine dining and spend a huge amount, which is fine, but we honestly feel that the traditional and slightly more relaxed places have such good food that you don’t need to!

So this is our 4 day itinerary for a food packed, super fun few days in San Sebastián. We hope this helps you plan your trip and maximise fun. Let us know what you think when you visit!