Day 13 - Visiting Hondarribia

Day 13 - October 13, 2013

Today we set out to see the village of Hondarribia.  It's located about forty five minutes by bus from San Sebastian near the Spain/France border.  We left the apartment to take bus 13 to Plaza Gipuzkoa where we would pick up E21 to Hondarribia.  Remember this was the bus we missed last time trying to go to the airport to check on flights.  This time we made sure we had enough time for the transfer.  While we waited at the plaza, Terry took some pictures of the plaza which is quite nice.

Swans in the pond

Rock waterfall

Flower garden

Center square gazebo.  Notice the clock  in the greenery at the forefront

As we were waiting for bus E21, E27 pulls up with the same destination.  Terry checked out the line map for it and noticed that it just had more stops before getting there.  So we decided to take a leap and venture out on a different bus. 

We went through some smaller towns on our way to Hondarribia where we'd never been before.  It was interesting to see the different landscape as you move out of San Sebastian. On the way we passed San Sebastian airport that we had wanted to go to a couple of days before. Thank goodness we didn't waste our time.  It's so small  we couldn't even figure out where the planes are.  We saw a couple of small private ones and there is only one runway.  Now we know why the apartment rep gave us a look when we said we wanted to make sure we're at the airport with enough time when we leave.  It literally looks like you just walk out and get on the one plane that's there.


I had looked at the area map of Hondarribia the day before so I had an idea of how it was laid out.  It's a Sunday, and most shops are closed, but we decided that it would be nice to just explore the city.  We arrived at our stop in the town center.

Fountain in center of Hondarribia

As we walked around, we noticed the quaint architecture on some of the houses that seems to remind you of the Austrian/German (Bavarian) type of facades.

 

Notice the resemblance to the Bavarian style houses

Continuing on through the small village streets, we noticed almost everything was closed, except for some restaurants and a few shops.  Walked into a couple of the shops to look around and realized how expensive everything was compared to San Sebastian.  For such a tiny fishing village, we couldn't understand that.  It just seemed so out of place.  So we moved on to walk along the water.  Here is where the Txingudi Bay and the Bidasoa River meet the Atlantic.  It divides France from Spain at the border in the Basque area.

The Txingudi Bay and Bidasoa River mouth meets the Atlanticc

Looking across Txingudi Bay from Hondarribia to France

The walkway along the Bidasoa  River and Txingudi Bay

Fishing piers jutting out into the bay

We spent about two hours in Hondarribia before going back to San Sebastian.  On our way back to the bus stop, we noticed a large fishing vessel in the middle of the parking lot.

It was a pleasant day and now time to go back.  We took E27 back again but this time we kept an eye out for a stop along the route closer to our apartment.  Sure enough, we saw one,  only a block and a half from the apartment.  Now we didn't have to transfer to another bus.  We'll probably figure this all out by the time we leave!