It is a fashionable seaside town, with wide modern streets, containing little to interest the visitor beyond the smartly dressed people, the shops, and the chances of seeing the youthful King of Spain or other members of European royal families. The picturesque bay, with the rocky Isle of Santa Clara and the mountainous coast-line, make San Sebastian a most attractive place. The season is from June to October, when inland towns are being baked under a fierce sun.
The old town, besieged in 1813 by Wellington’s army, and occupying a peninsula between the mouth of the Urumea and the bay, had had its fortifications removed by 1865, so that there is little to remind one of the siege of Napoleonic times. All who go there should, however, read a detailed account of the investment which Wellington entrusted to General Sir Thomas Graham. The garrison, under General Rey, made such a successful resistance to the first assault that the allied forces were obliged to retire, but a few weeks later Graham returned, and finally took the citadel on Mont Orgullo. The English and Spanish soldiers were accused of reckless sacking and plundering when they captured San Sebastian, but it is difficult to find the truth of the matter. One thing that is definitely known is the fact that Wellington complained so much of the plundering of the Spanish troops that he even sent them back from the front as he approached the Adour.
The citadel on Mont Orgullo cannot be entered without permission, but anyone may climb up the hill to the English cemetery, where the British officers who fell in the attacks on the town were buried.
The Church of Santa Maria was built in 1743, and San Vicente, rebuilt in 1507, has a reredos of gilded wood dated 1584.
THE LIMESTONE GORGE IN THE PYRENEES, BETWEEN PAMPLONA AND TOLOSA.
A large modern bull-ring is conspicuous on the hill on the east side of the river. It is highly interesting to visit this twentieth-century amphitheatre, and to see the elaborately fitted operating-room where the wounded toreador, a victim of Spanish decadence, can receive immediate treatment. There is also a small chapel in which the bull’s antagonist can receive the Sacrament before he goes out to the dangerous encounter.
At Irun, which need not delay one, there is a turning to the left leading down to the very picturesque little walled town of Fuentarrabia, at the mouth of the Bidassoa. It is difficult to take a motor through the narrow streets, and it is therefore wiser to leave the car outside the quaint gateway.
Wellington’s army crossed the mouth of the Bidassoa in October, 1813, the men wading through the water at low tide with their rifles held above their heads. Soult expected that the English would cross at Vera, eight miles up the river, the bridge at Béhobie having been destroyed, and being unaware of the ford among the sandbanks, which was known to the Basque fishermen.