San Sebastián ranks among the great resort cities of Europe, and ever since the Spanish royal family first decamped here for the summer in 1845, has been as a summer playground. In July and August especially, it tends to be packed out, and its hotels are among the most expensive in Spain.

While the superb sheltered beach is the biggest attraction of all, San Sebastián also boasts a charming old-town core, the Casco Viejo, squeezed up against the foot of verdant Monte Urgull. The new town to the south, known as Centro and the commercial hub of the city, holds a fine crop of century-old belle époque edifices.

The city is renowned for its Basque cuisine. San Sebastián and its surrounding area is home to a high concentration of restaurants boasting Michelin stars, and has the second highest per capita in the world, only behind Kyoto, Japan.

Travel

San Sebastián has 5 airports (3 international) within just over 100 km of the city. Only 20 minutes from the city centre, San Sebastián Airport has connections to Madrid and Barcelona. Bilbao Airport, with connections to all Europe, is 100km from the city, and Biarritz Airport, served by French and international low-cost companies, 40km.

San Sebastián was for centuries little more than a fishing village, but by 1174 it was granted self-governing status by the kingdom of Navarra for whom the bay was the principal outlet to the sea. Whale and cod fishing were the main occupations along with the export of Castilian products to European ports and then to the Americas. After years of knockabout trans-European conflicts that included the razing of the city by Anglo-Portuguese forces during the Peninsular War, San Sebastián was hoisted into 19th-century stardom as a fashionable watering hole by Spanish royalty dodging the searing heat of the southern mesas (tableland). By the close of the century, the city had been given a superb belle époque makeover that has left a legacy of elegant Art Nouveau buildings and beachfront swagger.