San Sebastian, Arrival

So, this is San Sebastián. The bus station is rather disappointing. More like a bus park. You may have trouble finding the exact location, so to help you, here's a map. Go into street view to give you a good idea. I had trouble orientating myself. Damn. No exit, no entrance, where do I go from here?

So, I headed to the nearest bus stop, looked at the map on display, headed to another, which I thought might be just about right.

Boy, do I hate feeling lost and vulnerable. There was a lady. 

Hola. Buenos días. ¿Es ésta la parada para ir hacia Ondarreta?

As luck would have it, she was from that area and she was going there. She explained that, no, this wasn't the stop, really. The one to take, normally, would be from the stop across the road; that'll bring us directly. However, it's one bus every 30 minutes or so and one's just passed. From this stop, we can take a bus to the centre, then change to another. It'll be quicker.

Under the circumstances, with the heavy cases and all, the easiest option was to follow this very kind lady. It'd cost more - we didn't have any bus passes - but it'd be better than getting lost. So, that was what we did.

In all honesty, I wasn't sure if it was quicker. We had to wait a while for both the buses. The complication was we had chosen to arrive on the day of the 34th Clasica Ciclista San Sebastian, a 219km, one-day event. A Saturday as well, on top of that. This meant that some roads would be closed. This meant that there would be LOTS of people. So a short journey turned out to be longer than normal.

The Boulevard

We just followed the lady, bless her heart. The sighted leading the blind. She practically brought us to the doorstep of where we were heading: Calle Ondarbide.

Journey Bilbao - San Sebastian

Continued from Café Iruña

Murphy's Law. Again. Lift wasn't working or someone was hogging it. So, I had to lug the heavy suitcases down the stairs. Ok, it was only one flight of stairs, but it was a long one. Anyway, it was better than some of the other places I'd stayed in where they were 3 or 4 floors up, no lift. It was just the frustration and how Murphy gets his timing spot on all the time. I'd never used this lift except for the first day and it had to be not working the very day I needed it; don't you think that's incredible?

So, suitcases down, out the door, right and left and we were at the tram stop within two minutes. Tickets bought, validated (we didn't validate them when we came, stupid tourists!), along came a tram. In and wham, chugging along - goodbye Goog - down and up to the bus station.

Long queue. Forget that. Machine, go for the machine. Queue, albeit shorter. Well, well, what do you know. ALSA, sold out. 12pm bus to San Sebastian sold out. No, no, next one's too late. Let's go for the PESA. It's gonna cost more, but it's better than hanging around for a couple of hours. No machines. Short queue at the ticket office. Yes! There are tickets. Yes, the next one. I think there's one leaving at 1pm. Next one...? There's one leaving now! At 12! Ok, get it!

Well, up we went and in no time, we were on our way.

Moral of the story: Bilbao to San Sebastian is a very popular route. In summer and at weekends, my advice is to buy your tickets in advance. Unfortunately, buying from ALSA's web site will cost you at least €1 more per ticket. That's what I call backward thinking. The cost for the normal bus on this route is €6.56. On PESA, it costs €11.75!

The choice is yours. The ideal thing to do is to get the tickets from Termibus, the bus station.

PESA's seats are quite narrow - I don't really know if ALSA's are wider because I didn't have this experience: thank goodness, the journey was just over an hour because I got the seat beside a guy who insisted on resting his arm on the armrest, with his elbow jutting into MY space ALL THE WAY! And also with lousy headphones where I could hear screechy noises (can't really call it music) emanating from the back of them.