Hondarribia (Fuenterrabía)

Dawn on the estuary

At 07:30 the Bidasoa looks like polished pewter. A pair of fishing skiffs nose upstream, engines ticking over while the crew haul crab pots within sight of the runway lights at San Sebastián airport. From the promenade you can watch the same scene in two countries: Hondarribia’s pastel houses on the right bank, Hendaye’s apartment blocks on the left, and the tide deciding which way the border river will flow. It’s a frontier town, but the only obvious checkpoint is the ferryman who waves a hand-held reader at day-trippers heading for a croissant breakfast.

Twenty minutes later the stone ramparts above the old town catch the first sun and glow the colour of burnt toffee. The walls are intact, walkable and mercifully free of souvenir stalls – you simply climb a short flight of steps near the tourist office and complete the circuit in the time it takes to drink a takeaway coffee. Cannon slits frame views across Txingudi Bay to the Pyrenees; swifts dive overhead like fighter planes rehearsing the 1638 siege that locals still re-enact every September.

Three barrios, one hill

Hondarribia stacks its neighbourhoods vertically. At the top sits the casco histórico, a grid of four streets inside a 15th-century fortress. Knock on any wooden door and you’ll find a sword scar or a coat of arms; balconies drip with geraniums that have never heard the word “quaint”. In the middle sits Plaza de Armas, wedged tight between the church of Santa María and the Parador de Carlos V. The castle-hotel looks the part – round towers, iron rings in the wall – but room rates start at €210, so most visitors stay down the slope in the marina quarter where fishermen’s houses are painted the maritime spectrum: ox-blood red, sea-green, iodine yellow.

La Marina is where the town keeps its appetite. Calle San Pedro is barely wider than a Dartmoor lane yet fits fourteen pintxo bars shoulder to shoulder. By 12:30 the street sounds like a Friday night in Soho: clinking txakoli glasses, sizzling garlic, a burst of Basque that needs no translation when someone shouts “Gilda!” – the local skewer of anchovy, olive and chilli named after Rita Hayworth’s leggy film role. Order one, plus a glass of pale local cider poured from height to wake the bubbles, and you’ll still get change from €4. Vegetarians do fine: grilled guindilla peppers arrive blistered and salted, and most bars will rustle up a tortilla pintxo if you ask before the lunchtime rush.

Below the bars lies the third layer: Playa de Hondarribia. It’s a 600-metre crescent of sand backed by a concrete walk and a handful of beach bars that rent SUP boards for €12 an hour. The Atlantic swell is broken by the bay, so waves are toddler-friendly while parents eye the ferry timetable to Hendaye where the surf picks up. High-season weekends fill with Spanish families who arrive armed with cool boxes and striped umbrellas; come September you can walk the tideline and count only gulls and the occasional windsurfer sliding past the lighthouse.

When the mountain calls

Behind the town the ground rises sharply to Jaizkibel, a 547-metre ridge that acts as a climatic wall. Drive the winding road past the cemetery and within ten minutes the temperature drops three degrees; fizzing views open over the French coast and, on clear days, as far as San Sebastián’s crescent bay. Park at the Guadalupe chapel (free) and choose your effort: a twenty-minute stroll to the first viewpoint or the full coastal traverse to Pasaia, 14 km of roller-coaster trail that demands proper shoes and a weather-eye – fog can roll in faster than you can say “OS map”.

Mountain weather is the village’s wild card. In July you might sunbathe at eleven and pull on a fleece for lunch; in January gales rattle the shutters and the bars light wood-burners. The upshot is an off-season charm that the Costa del Sol can’t manufacture: hotel prices halve, you’re offered a table by the window without negotiating, and the bartender has time to explain why txistorra (thin, mild chorizo) tastes different here – the pigs graze on acorns blown across the border oak woods.

Crossing the line

Practicalities are painless. Biarritz airport is 25 km away; a shared taxi costs about €35 and drivers accept either currency. Closer still is tiny San Sebastián airport – planes descend so low over La Marina that you can read airline logos – and a fixed €20 cab ride drops you inside the walls in five minutes. If you hire a car, swing straight into the underground car park at Plaza de Armas (€18 for 24 h); the old town’s lanes are pedestrian-only and local police ticket with Gallic efficiency.

The ferry to France leaves every half-hour from Easter to October, €2 each way. Treat it like a floating pintxo crawl: land in Hendaye for a coffee, walk the wide boulevard back to the Spanish bank at low tide, then reward yourself with a glass of sweet cider (only 0.5% ABV) while you wait for the return sailing. On Wednesdays the boat fills with French shoppers heading to Hondarribia’s market on Plaza de Armas – good for cheap strawberries, bad for queue-jumpers.

What to expect when you’re expecting dinner

Evenings start late. The daylight lingers over the estuary until nearly 22:00 in midsummer, so locals drift to the bars around 20:00 for a miniature supper of spider-crab gratin or salt-cod in garlic emulsion. Tourists who arrive ravenous at 18:30 find half the shutters still down; patience is cured with a caña and a plate of green peppers that taste like Padrón’s better-behaved cousins. Reservations matter in August when Spanish tour buses disgorge their cargo between 11:30 and 14:30; after 16:00 the streets feel half-empty again and you can usually bag a terrace table without diplomacy.

The only time the town clogs solid is 8 September for the Alarde parade, a drum-beating, musket-firing commemoration of the 1638 siege. Accommodation trebles in price and earplugs become essential; plan around it or dive in, but don’t expect a quiet night.

Worth the detour?

Hondarribia isn’t a place to tick off masterpieces – the castle is a hotel, the church closes at dusk, and the beach will never make the Caribbean jealous. What it offers instead is concentration: three countries’ cultures in a square kilometre, a mountain hike before lunch, a French croissant after, and a bed within earshot of the tide. Stay one night and you’ll leave full; stay two and you’ll start greeting the barman in Basque, which is when the village stops being a stopover and becomes the reason you crossed the Pyrenees in the first place.