2005

I arrived in San Sebastian without a reservation on a Friday in August. There are worse times to arrive in the Basque city without a reservation -- during the film festival, during Semana Grande. That's about it.

Bilbao

San Sebastian

Spain

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I hadn't planned on being in San Sebastian for the weekend; I had planned to be in Bilbao. And I had been in Bilbao, where I quickly learned it was THEIR Semana Grande. Every pension had a little COMPLETO taped next to its name on the dusty intercom.

Yes, I should have made a reservation for Bilbao. But rooms, I feel, are like parking spaces -- one will always turn up. In any case, I returned to the bustling bus station and bought a ticket for San Sebastian.

At the tourist information office, I spoke with a harried young woman who opened a map and circled with her pen the only hotel that still had rooms. She said I would have to take a bus.

I walked out thinking: That can't be true. It was now early evening and I had, I figured, about two hours until darkness fell. Two hours until I became one of the homeless, if a city as seemingly resplendent as San Sebastian even harbored homeless.

I walked quickly, looking three ways at intersections for the uplifting sight of a neon hotel sign or even a modest, unilluminated shingle. When one appeared, I'd invariably march down to it, only to find COMPLETO taped to the intercom.

On Calle San Martin, a major thoroughfare, I was going nowhere when a soft voice asked if I was looking for a room. I turned and saw a short woman in her 60s. She lived, she said, on the other side of the street. I followed her through the front entrance, down the dark hall, into the tiny elevator and up to the sixth floor, where she opened the door to her apartment and showed me my room overlooking a courtyard. It would be, she said, 20 euros (about $25) a night.

I plopped onto the bed, semi-ecstatic. I had a roof over my head. But I couldn't really relax in the home of a stranger (even one so obviously harmless). I changed my shirt and went out for a stroll.

At the end of Calle San Martin stood the Hostal Alemana. The receptionist told me a single room was available. I asked if I could see it. The room looked as if it had been built around the bed; a small TV hung above the foot, and a window, by the head, looked out into an airless shaft. I said I'd move in the morning.

I headed back down San Martin with the swagger of a man who has beaten the odds. Somewhere south of the cathedral I stepped into a place to celebrate. The bar was covered with dishes, which were filled with tapas. The few customers held their drinks in their hands. Most of the tapas were constructions atop a slice of baguette. I pointed to one piled with ham, cheese and tomato. In my state of mind, a slice of Lebanon bologna would have tasted like paradise, but each ingredient was so rich in flavor that this little morsel did an end zone dance.

This was followed by some mussels sprinkled with onions and green peppers. Simple. Elegant. But I knew there was more. I thanked the bartender and swaggered out the door.

I'd eaten tapas before. But here in the Basque Country, I'd been told, they were more impressive, more complex. They were not simple appetizers thrown together by a harried barman but little works of art created by the finest chefs. The most elaborate were called "haute cuisine in miniature."

North of the cathedral, young couples munched on benches outside Meson Martin. Inside, people jostled four or five deep at the bar, which, also, was completely covered with dishes. For the hungry traveler, there is nothing quite like the sight of a bar blanketed with food. A stand-up banquet.

I started off with another ham, cheese and tomato medley, which sounds boring only if you've never tasted Spanish jamon. The mix of salt and juice and chalky cheese was so delicious I could have eaten the entire plate. But there was so much more. Over in the corner sat a plate of high-rise tapas that looked like sculptures. I pointed to a gathering of what appeared to be anorexic worms piled atop bread -- their slim white bodies slid smoothly down the throat with a pleasant, oceany taste. (A friend told me later that these are actually artificial baby eels, as the real things have become exorbitantly expensive.) I washed them all down with a sip of white wine.

When I pointed to a little ham, shrimp and calamari number, the bartender placed it on a plate and stuck it in a toaster oven before delivering it to me. When I bit into it I tasted all the expected flavors of a Basque surf and turf -- the pow! of the jamon mixing gloriously with the ping! of the squid -- plus a head-spinning sensation of moist yet crunchy oil-and-garlicky toast.

When I was ready to leave I pointed out the plates from which I had feasted and the bartender told me the total -- with wine, about 12 or 14 euros -- in what seemed to me a beautiful system of informality and trust.

The next morning, after moving into the Alemana, I set out to see the place that had so magically housed and masterfully fed me. And I quickly discovered that I had landed in the perfect city.

For San Sebastian contains all the elements you would need to build an ideal town. You would start with a crescent beach, and then put two verdant hills at either end of it. Atop the tallest you would place a statue of Christ, perhaps (illuminating it at night, so it looks like a floating apparition) and at the ocean edge of the other you would put the sculptures of your most famous modern artist. Between the two, of course, you would run a spacious seaside promenade.

So the bay didn't look too bare, you would drop a pretty little island into it, and name it after a saint. (Nothing wrong with Clara.)

To give the ocean and the bay some company, you would want a river, which would provide the occasion for some elegant bridges with turn-of-the-century lampposts.

At the foot of the tallest hill, between the river and the bay, you would construct your old town. No old town should be without a plaza; you deposit it here, and tuck it away so it comes as a surprise to aimless tourists. Here, too, is where you slip in candle-lit churches and fluorescent-bulbed bars.

Across the river you would add another beach and then fill part of it with a great slanting modernist building (which glows at night) for concerts, exhibitions, the annual film festival (you'll want your town periodically visited by stars).

The wider, newer streets you would line with six-story buildings with stately facades and wrought-iron balconies. To break the monotony, you could throw in a neo-Gothic cathedral here and another plaza there.

There would be a main boulevard, lined with trees and, on summer evenings, talented buskers, including but not limited to a couple dancing tango, a Basque balladeer, a jazz band from Ukraine and an amazing young man with a marionette monkey.

Here and there you'd distribute jai-alai courts, swimming pools, a tennis club. You'd scrawl some separatist graffiti (you need a little despair) and plop down a few alternative clubs. Then you'd cover every bar in town with plates of tapas.