A postcard from Monte Ulia, Basque Country

You might have explored San Sebastian’s beaches, pintxos bars and nightlife – but you almost certainly don’t know the three mountains surrounding it. Basque writer Gabriel Urza explores these spots full of history and hidden beauty

By Gabriel Urza for Public Streets by Public Books, part of the Guardian Books Network

You may have visited San Sebastian, Spain – Donostia, as the locals began calling it again after Franco died in 1975 and the street signs began to revert back to Euskera [the Basque language]. Maybe you spent a couple summer days on the beach of la Concha during your tour of Europe after college, or perhaps you’d been waylaid on your way to the Guggenheim in Bilbao. And sure, you may know the pintxos loaded with plum-colored hams and oily sardines plated on the counters of oak bars in the old part of town, but everybody knows about the pintxos. Even the guiri tourists, after a couple days in the Basque Country, will have their favorite plate at their favorite bars. Maybe you’ve even discovered the metallic taste of barely-cooked venison at the Bar Senra, or an inconspicuous door leading to a hash-filled basement nightclub on the harbor, or if you are of a certain age perhaps you will even know the tuxedoed waiters pouring Ballantine’s over ice for sunburned Brits at the Hotel Londres. But you, almost certainly, will not know the three mountains surrounding the city’s three harbors: Igueldo, Urgull, Ulia.

There is, I suppose, the off-chance that you do happen to know one of the three mountains surrounding San Sebastian (or the three mendiak as the young children who speak only Basque would say, or the three montes, as their parents, the generation without language, would say). In this case, it is surely Monte Igueldo, the westernmost peak, the most traditionally handsome and accessible of the three sisters. You’ve gone to Igueldo, no doubt, to visit Eduardo Chillida’s rusted sculptures reaching from the sea at the base of the mountain, or you’ve taken the rickety funicular up to Igueldo’s battered old amusement park with a few friends and a Coke bottle half-filled with rum. A great way to spend the afternoon, if you’re into that sort of thing.

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