San Sebastián day trip

It’s a 101 km run from Bilbao along the A-8, tracing the Cantabrian shoreline over the 445 m Itziar pass and skirting the bays of Zarautz and Orio before rolling into Donostia–San Sebastián. La Concha curves for 1.3 km between Belle Époque railings and Santa Clara Island; the Old Town clusters around Calle 31 de Agosto, the lone survivor of the 1813 fire. Ride the 1912 funicular up Mount Igueldo (181 m) for a clean sweep of the bay and the Ulia cliffs.

Your driver collects you from your Bilbao hotel in a Mercedes and stays on hand all day, making bar-to-bar pintxo hops effortless. Stop at Mercado de la Bretxa, pivot to San Telmo Museum if the weather shifts, then point west: Getaria for a txakoli tasting and wood-grilled fish at Elkano or Kaia-Kaipe, before cruising past Zarautz and back on the A-8. In San Sebastián, you taste, linger, and look—while someone else has the keys.