San Sebastián: the old town, the harbour and Urgull: a self-guided walk
By Alleytale
The old town, the harbour and the fortress hill
The fire of 31 August 1813 runs through the walk: the harbour buildings that came through it, the square rebuilt after it, the street that took its date as a name, and the hill where the French garrison held out.
The stops
Before it was the town hall, this building was the city's casino, put up when San Sebastián was an important summer destination. It was built between 1882 and 1887 to a design by Adolfo Morales de los Ríos and Luis Aladrén Mendivil, and opened as a casino on 1 July 1887. At the start of the Civil War rebels barricaded themselves inside and were driven out after hard fighting, and the page on the building says the bullet marks can still be seen on the façade that faces the Boulevard. The council took it over as its town hall in the 1940s.
Photo: Rehman Abubakr — CC BY-SA 4.0 Portaletas, also called the Puerta del Mar, is an old gate that linked the harbour with the old town and one of the few surviving pieces of the medieval defences. When the city walls came down in 1863 the gate survived, though it was altered over time, and in 1921 part of its roof became a terrace with a view, joined to the walkway on top of the wall. Every 22 May images of Santa Rita and Santa Quiteria are set beside its arches to remember the sailors lost at sea.
Photo: Javier Perez Montes — CC BY-SA 4.0 Aita Mari was the nickname of José María Zubía, a fisherman born in Zumaia who settled in San Sebastián around 1850 as the skipper of a fishing boat. He became a popular hero for the rescues he made in storms, and on 9 January 1866 a wave swept him away after he had pulled every castaway of a boat from Getaria into his own. Thirty-eight fishermen died in the storm that day. The people of the town first put a bust on the quay in his memory, and in 1900 it was replaced by the larger monument that stands here today.
Photo: Josu Goñi Etxabe — Public domain The museum fills the former Casa-Torre of the Consulado of San Sebastián, built in the middle of the 18th century and used to watch over harbour traffic, collect port taxes and look after the quays. It is one of the few civil buildings that survived the destruction of the city in 1813, and the only architectural trace left of the old Consulado. The museum opened in 1991 as the Museo Naval and took its present name in 2017.
Photo: Luistxo — CC BY-SA 4.0 According to the Basque Wikipedia this is the oldest residential building in the old town. It is called the Dutch house because Dutch merchants kept their desk here in the 17th century, tied to the traffic of the nearby port. In the fire of 31 August 1813 it was among the only houses to come through, those facing north, the even numbers. It is built of red brick, and its inner structure still keeps the layout of an old warehouse.
Photo: Hpholke — CC BY-SA 4.0 After the fire of 1813 the old square on this spot was rebuilt as a neoclassical arcaded plaza mayor, with 20 equal arches along each long side and nine along the short one. The balconies are numbered because they served as boxes for the bullfights once held here. The square was known as the Plaza Nueva until 1820, its central building was the town hall until the 1940s, and today it hosts the city's big festivals, such as the Tamborrada.
Photo: Matthias Bethke — CC BY-SA 4.0 One of the oldest monuments in the city and one of the few that came through the fire and destruction of 1813, this Gothic church was built between 1507 and 1574 over an earlier temple damaged by fire in 1489. Its main altarpiece, agreed in 1583 with Ambrosio de Bengoechea and finished in his workshop in 1586, is counted among the best of Romanism, the school of Michelangelo. The church also plays a big part in the Quincena Musical festival.
Photo: Kent Wang — CC BY-SA 4.0 This street used to be called the Calle de la Trinidad. When British and Portuguese troops took the town by assault on 31 August 1813 and left it in flames, about thirty houses on this street were kept to lodge the British and Portuguese command while the rest of the town burned, and the street took the date as its name. The burning is remembered every 31 August, when the lights go out and candles are lit along the street, and the street runs between the basilica of Santa María and the church of San Vicente.
Photo: Daquellamanera — CC BY 2.0 The museum sits in a Dominican convent built between 1544 and 1562 under the patronage of Alonso de Idiaquez, secretary to Emperor Charles V, and his wife Gracia de Olazabal. The convent was damaged in 1813, became artillery barracks after 1836, and was bought by the city in 1929; it reopened as a museum in 1932, with the church decorated by canvases of the Catalan painter Josep Maria Sert. A 2011 extension climbs the slope of Urgull behind it, its façade of aluminium panels pierced with holes where plants grow.
Photo: Zarateman — CC0 This square at the foot of Urgull was designed in 1963 by the architect Luis Peña Ganchegui, to mark a hundred years since the city walls were pulled down. It was made from the site of a ruined Jesuit school that had once been used as a prison, and it holds a pelota court and a basketball court. The square hosts cultural events such as the Jazzaldia festival.
Photo: Vidartereyes — CC BY-SA 4.0 The baroque basilica was finished in 1774 on the site of a Romanesque church, enlarged in the Gothic-Renaissance style between 1522 and 1560. In 1688 an explosion at the powder magazine of La Mota castle, just behind, badly damaged that earlier church, and rebuilding began in 1743. The portal between the two towers is built like an altarpiece, with the martyred Saint Sebastian above it, and at the high altar stands a small wooden image of the Virgin of the Choir, patron of the city together with Saint Sebastian.
Photo: User Spike — CC BY-SA 4.0 This small burial ground on the slope of Urgull that faces Britain was opened during the First Carlist War (1833 to 1840). Mainly officers of the British Auxiliary Legion are buried here, who came under Sir George de Lacy Evans to support the liberal side of Isabella II. Many of the dead were not Catholic and could not be buried in the city's consecrated cemeteries. An inscription honours the heroes known only to God, and in 1924 the site was restored and a monument raised in a ceremony attended by Queen Victoria Eugenia.
Photo: Luistxo — CC BY-SA 2.0 Tradition credits King Sancho the Strong of Navarre with building the first fortress on this hilltop around 1194, and by 1200 it had passed to Castile. When the allies broke into the burning town on 31 August 1813 the French garrison fell back here, and it surrendered on 8 September, granted the honours of war. The 12.5 metre statue of the Sacred Heart on the old keep dates from 1950.
Photo: csBulegotik (Tagzania user ID: 6) — CC BY-SA 4.0
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