Our Airbnb host in San Sebastian, to him Donostia, was fantastic. Well before our arrival, he sent a long list of places to visit, hikes to go on, and pintxos to eat. Immediately, “the most famous” hike, called “Ruta de las Gaviotas” (Seagull Route) stood out. Its description highlighted coastline views with relative ease. The hike started next to a church in front of Zurriola Beach, and finished in a small fisherman village called Pasajes San Pedro. Right away, my wife and I decided that would be a day of our vacation. 

San Sebastian is made up of two beach coves. We were staying in the Centro neighborhood of La Concha Beach and the hike started in the Gros neighborhood of Zurriola Beach. Zurriola Beach is the surfing beach in San Sebastian. Along the beachfront, there are surfing stores, clubs, and lessons for tourists. We walked down the promenade and found a chain link fence at the end of the street. This wasn’t the trailhead that I had expected.

We walked back the other direction, this time hugging the mountainside expecting to find a trailhead, but didn’t have any luck. There was a building that looked like a church, the end of Zurriola beach, and we were in the spot that our Airbnb host had marked on our map. We went back to the end of the beach, saw the chain link fence again, and really didn’t know where to go. 

My wife was starting to get irritated. She likes to know where she’s going and neither of us had a clue. At this point, I’m already internally hedging that we had a nice long walk, saw Zurriola Beach, and we might start thinking about lunch. We stopped at a motorcycle themed bar and had two radlers. 

Checking the blue dot on Google Maps wasn’t that helpful. There were roads and lighter colored paths that led up the mountain, but they all ended. They didn’t wrap around the coast like the description said the hike did. Regardless, after the radlers, we decided to walk along one of these roads and see if we couldn’t find the Seagull Route. 

Uphill on paved roads, we followed our digital blue dot and climbed through a residential area. The higher we got, the better the views were. We didn’t see too many people on the road, a few cars, but we kept on climbing the sidewalk until we found a set of stairs. 

It was a huge set of white stone stairs going straight up. To me, this was an indication that we were on the right path. The stairs made their way though a tunnel of trees and ended on another paved road. At this point, we really didn’t have any idea where we were going and each step further was going to make the walk home even longer. We were still on a marked road in Google Maps, but that didn’t look promising as it ended somewhere in the middle of the mountain. Walking along the moss covered sidewalk, there was a restaurant to our left that had a Michilien star, classic San Sebastian. Other than the restaurant and a few larger homes, there was not much development in the area. 

Past the restaurant, we walked on a bridge with a downwards view and there it was, the trail! We were so happy to have finally found it. It was obviously what we were looking for, people were hiking on it and it was gravel instead of asphalt. We went back towards the restaurant looking for the entrance, but couldn’t find anything. Then we walked past the bridge and found a way down. It was steep, almost like a bike path or a water rundown area.

I tried to go down it carefully, but my momentum took over and I was fast and out of control. My feet were finding places to land, my arms and hands were keeping me balanced, and I felt like I was about to smack into a tree. Fearing the worst, I was shouting the entire way down, “don’t do that, don’t do that, don’t do that.” Thankfully, I didn’t run into anything and there was space after the hill for me to slow myself down. My wife was smarter than me and scooted down the hill safely.

We had finally found the trail and started on it. At the start of our hike, we had half a bottle of water left and no food. For some reason, we were incredibly unprepared for what we knew was around a twelve mile hike. Getting out of the Airbnb was difficult that day. The night before we had a food tour that ended with us watching Spain beat France to advance to the final of the European championship. We even forgot to pack sunscreen and had to buy some on the way to Zurriola Beach. 

The trail was stunning. Beautiful hydrangea flowers, views of the ocean, and dense foliage were all around us. There were not many people on the trail with us. A class of German teenagers going down a muddy hill and a family of four led by a father with a walking stick were passerbys on the journey. Along the way, there were old ruins, a carved out stone, rock, and mud hotspring, and a door in the base of the mountain. These things made it feel like a real adventure. Near the end of the walk, we found an old stone aqueduct and a pipe that had clear and cold water coming out of it. We sat at the stone table nearby and, at that point, were ready for the hike to be over. 

We were guided by signposts that marked the direction of what seemed to be three different trails. We were following the green, white, and red for a while, but those split off and our trail ended up being the white and red until the end. There was a map of the coastline behind plexiglass around 2 miles into the hike where we realized that we were in for the long haul. Going back the way we came was pretty much a nonstarter so we pushed on. 

After the aqueduct, we started to see powerlines, paved roads, and more signs of civilization. Going around a bend and seeing a town in a new cove, we knew that we were close to our final destination. Our thoughts turned to getting some water, something to eat, and how we were going to get home. 

Arriving in the village, there wasn’t much to see. Most of the restaurants and the old church were on the other side of the water. It was between lunch and dinner and the ferry and restaurants were all closed. There was an open but empty bar that we got water and iberian ham flavored chips in. The barkeeper was cleaning squid, stacking boxes, and getting ready for the evening. 

There also weren’t any taxis in sight. This was not good for me. My entire plan home centered on getting a taxi. My wife had been wondering how we were going to make our way back and I kept on deferring to the taxis which were not materializing. Getting closer to the center of town, there was a bus at the bus stop that I set my hopes on. We picked up our pace, paid the driver, and sat down. It felt great to have a seat after that long hike. The bus was the right one and we got back to “our side of town.” 

Walking back to our Airbnb, we picked up some pastries, deli meat, and a few other things from a supermarket. It felt surreal to be back inside the apartment and the meal we had felt like a feast. 

©2024 Michael Lins. All Rights Reserved. Maps courtesy of Google Maps.