Today on Travel Tuesdays we travel to back to San Sebastián/Donostia (the Basque name for the town) to spend a Sunday afternoon with the locals.

Chris and I stayed in San Sebastián/Donostia for 5 days back in May, which was enough time to wander around much of the old town as well as to walk along many of its beaches.  As I mentioned last week, San Sebastián/Donostia is a city renowned for its beaches. In fact, according to the English translation in the tourist brochure that the hotel gave us, San Sebastián has the “second-best urban beach in Europe.” Second-best? Really? I don’t know why, but I found it funny that they are so proud of their second place status that they put that fact in the brochure. Perhaps the phrase reads better in Spanish.

And before you ask, no, I don’t know what’s first on the list.

Anyway, while we were in San Sebastián/Donostia, we wandered around every day, seeing local sights as well as the beaches.  We went to visit an interesting museum that had displays and information about the history of the area. Nearby, there was a large playground with a nice cafe favored by locals;  we vowed to visit it before we left town.

The day we made it back over to that area was a Sunday.  The playground was filled with families with children, and all  the kids were busy playing with some huge head-sized masks that clearly seemed to represent some specific story, but what it was we didn’t know. It seemed as though the masks could be rented for a small fee from a central table, and different kids played with different ones while we were there. Some of the masks even came with props appropriate to the character, including on where the character in a big black hat got to bop other kids with a ball on a stick. The kid in the photo below is practicing with that prop:

Children with masks, Donostia

In the next photo you can see another child in a different mask. The little boy to her left is running around with a “bull’s head” mounted on a wheeled contraption. This was also part of the stuff that could be rented from that table. Perhaps this kind of toy allows them practice their toreador skills at a young age? We were in Spain, after all.

Child and masks, Donostia

Anyway, as I said, on our earlier walks, we’d noticed a cafe nearby that always had  lots of locals hanging out outside. This Sunday afternoon was no different, with the adults both at the cafe as well as on the playground, watching their kids and interacting with each other. We got a seat and hung out there, too, enjoying the sights and sounds while sampling a local wine.

It wasn’t a big adventure, but another fun part of travel is getting the chance to spend a quiet afternoon absorbing some of the local atmosphere.  Quite a nice memory from one Sunday in Donostia.

Donostia Reflection, take at the cafe near the playground in Donostia