Pasaia (Pasajes)

The water-taxi captain kills the engine halfway across the bay. For thirty seconds the boat drifts, just long enough for passengers to notice how the houses of San Juan are stacked like books in an overfilled shelf, their colourful spines pressed between mountain rock and salt water. Then he restarts the outboard, noses against the stone landing, and eight people step onto a street barely wider than a Devon lane. Welcome to Pasaia—four villages pretending to be one, 5 km east of San Sebastián and a world away from its polished promenades.

A Harbour that Never Learnt to Whisper

Pasaia’s raison d’être is the deep, narrow inlet that slices inland for 3 km. Ocean-going freighters share the channel with rowing boats; on windy days the wash slaps against the quay with enough force to rattle restaurant windows. The smell is equally democratic—diesel, seaweed, grilled hake, and occasionally the sweet whiff of txakoli fermenting in the nearby cooperative.

San Pedro, on the western bank, is where most visitors arrive. It’s the practical sibling: bus stop, supermarkets, the municipal car park that fills by 10 a.m. at weekends. Walk downhill past the fish-auction hall and you’ll reach the embarcadero where the lancha-pasera leaves every quarter-hour. The fare is €0.80 each way—exact coins only, no contactless. Miss the last boat after 9 p.m. in winter and you face a 40-minute road detour that involves two bridges and a motorway loop; locals insist this is character-building.

Across the water, San Juan (Pasai Donibane in Basque) is the postcard half, though it would resent the description. Yes, the 16th-century stone houses are plastered in sherbet colours, but fishing nets still hang from wrought-iron balconies and the barbershop keeps irregular hours because the owner also crews a trawler. Victor Hugo rented a room here in 1843; a discreet plaque marks the spot, though the landlord’s descendants have long since converted the attic into a holiday let charging £180 a night in high season.

Lunch at the Edge of the Atlantic

By 1 p.m. the queue outside Casa Cámara snakes past the shrine of Our Lady of Safe Return. The restaurant occupies a former customs house whose ground-floor windows open directly onto the tide. Monkfish stewed in txakoli is the dish every British blog insists you try; the kitchen uses the tail end, so there are no alarming heads glaring at nervous eaters. A portion (£28) feeds two if you order chips—thick, hand-cut, more Devon than Donostia. Ask for half a bottle of the house txakoli; at 11% ABV it’s closer to vinho verde than to Chablis, and the slight fizz scrubs the palate clean of garlicky sauce.

Should Casa Cámara be full (or closed, as it is most Mondays), walk fifty metres to Txulotxo. The daily set menu costs £14 and includes hake cheeks—soft, gelatinous, tasting like cod’s roe without the faff. Locals wash it down with cider served in chunky white mugs; the pour is flat and sharp, a revelation if you find lager too gassy.

Uphill, Where the Phone Signal Dies

Lunch makes you ambitious, so you tackle the coastal path towards Mount Ulia. The first flight of steps begins beside the yacht club; within five minutes the village shrinks to Lego size and the Cantabrian surf booms against concrete breakwaters. For 3 km the trail clings to cliffs high enough to make vertigo sufferers sit down and reconsider. Handrails vanished in a 2023 storm and haven’t been replaced; the council’s solution is a yellow pictogram of a stick figure tumbling into the sea. Go early—by 11 a.m. the sun is relentless and there’s no shade except the occasional gorse bush. Dogs are technically allowed, but you’ll carry anything smaller than a Labrador across the narrowest sections.

The effort is rewarded with a bird’s-eye view of the inlet’s mouth. On clear days you can track container ships entering from the Atlantic like oversized swans, while kayakers scatter in their wake. Turn back when you reach the Ulia lighthouse or continue another hour to San Sebastián’s Zurriola beach, where a bus (£1.75) returns you to Pasaia in twenty minutes.

What the Postcards Crop Out

San Juan’s main street takes eight minutes to walk end-to-end; pause to read every plaque and you might stretch it to twenty. Beyond the pastel façades lies the working port: warehouses painted municipal beige, forklifts beeping, a constant hum of refrigeration units. Tourism here is a side-hustle, not the main gig. That explains why some restaurants still close at 3 p.m. sharp—even if you’re mid-chew—and why Saturday nights echo to ship horns rather than karaoke.

Weather matters more than in most seaside towns. A south-westerly can funnel through the inlet at 50 mph; when it does, the water-taxi suspends service and outdoor tables vanish inside. Bring a waterproof even in July; the same micro-climate that keeps summers mild also manufactures sudden horizontal rain. In winter the sun sets behind the ridge at 4 p.m. and the villages feel like backstage after the show—lights on, actors gone.

Four Districts, Four Tempos

Antxo, uphill from San Pedro, was built for dockworkers in the 1960s. The flats are concrete, the bar serves tortilla bigger than frisbees, and the Friday market sells knock-off trainers next to fresh octopus. Trintxerpe, further round the bay, has a yacht marina whose pontoons groan under gin-palace cruisers. Between them they provide the rental accommodation denied to San Juan by geography: if you want a three-bed flat with parking for under £100 a night, you’ll bed down here and walk fifteen minutes to the pretty bit.

Fiestas punctuate the calendar like exclamation marks. San Juan’s midsummer bonfires on 23 June turn the narrow quay into a barbecue pit; sparks drift across washing lines, but nobody seems to mind. San Pedro’s regatta in early September is more sedate—rowing crews in matching shirts, brass bands, and cider served from polystyrene cool boxes. Both events double the weekend population; if you hate crowds, come in late April when the bay is quiet enough to hear cutlery clink inside kitchens.

Getting Out Alive

The last water-taxi leaves San Juan at 21:00 in winter, 22:00 in summer. Stand on the landing, wave early, and the skipper will still pretend not to see you if he’s already full of commuters. Should that happen, the road alternative is a £9 Uber back to San Sebastián—assuming a driver feels like crossing the river at rush hour. Better to time your exit, retreat to a bar for a nightcap, and admit that Pasaia works on tidal, rather than tourist, time.

Leave the car at Trintxerpe’s free car park and accept you’ll clock up 6,000 steps. Wear shoes with grip; cobbles are slippery even when dry. Book Casa Cámara ahead online—they reply to WhatsApp within an hour and will hold a table until 2 p.m. Most importantly, don’t arrive hunting for a highlight reel. Pasaia’s appeal is cumulative: the thud of the boat against tyre-fenders, the way salt streaks the windows of your lunchtime restaurant, the realisation that the pretty row of houses is still paying rent to the sea that built it. Stay long enough to miss the last ferry and you’ll understand the place properly—stranded for twenty minutes on the wrong side of the water, watching gulls fight over fish guts while the tide keeps its own clock.