Meg and The History Girl in San Sebastian : Day Two in Donostia San Sebastian

Here is the view from my room when I awake. All the clouds have gone.

After enjoying a breakfast kindly provided by our hosts, in fact there are enough croissants and toast for the whole six nights, we set off for the San Telmo Museum. STM as it is known. It is situated in an old Dominican Convent (with beautiful cloisters) with a new wing which opened in 2011. Read more here https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_San_Telmo

Donastia SS is the European Capital of Culture 2016, so there is plenty for us to see. The main exhibition is 1516-2016. Tratados de Paz (Peace treaties) which brings together more than 600 pieces from 21 international museums, including the Louvre, Centre Pompidou, Reina Sofía National Museum, Prado National Museum, Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, and Artium, the Basque Museum of Contemporary Art Centre and others.

Split between the San Telmo Museum and the Koldo Mitxelena Cultural Centre, the exhibition guides the public through the different representations and meanings that peace has had in the history of art, law, and culture.

Works from well known artists such as Goya, Rubens, Murillo and Ribera can be seen, along with Picasso, Le Corbusier and Maruja Mallo.

The exhibition follows four years of research and is really thought provoking and hugely ambitious, perhaps needing some reigning in, says the HG, as there is so much to take in.

The exhibition starts with the emblematic figure of Franscisco de Vitoria, who was the inspiration for the first international school of law. The Iberian School of Peace was set up in the sixteenth century, an era that was defined by the expulsion of Moors and Jews from the Iberian peninsula, the colonisation of America and wars against "heretics".

Among the works are Picasso's Weeping Head and Weeping Woman's Head with Handkerchief, compositions created by the artist once Guernica was completed, but which are formally and conceptually linked to it. These works, together with Le Corbusier's The Fall of Barcelona, who is better known for his architectural works than his paintings, have been loaned by the Reina Sofía National Museum. In addition, the Prado National Museum has collaborated with works such as José de Ribera's Women Gladiators, Francisco de Goya y Lucientes' Children play soldier, Murillo's The Conversion of Paul the Apostle, Zurbarán's Hercules fighting the Nemean Lion, and Rubens' Philip II on Horseback.

Basque museums have also provided some of their works, such as Del LaGrace Volcano's Duke: King of the Hill, supplied by Artium. Likewise, the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum has collaborated with the sign Pomozte baskickym detem! (Help Basque children!), by Oskar Kokoschka. This sign, created by the Austrian artist in 1937, was shown in various towns in Bohemia, and served to announce a campaign to help the Basque children that were the victims of the Gernika bombing. As Kokoschka tells in his memoirs, the police in Prague tore the sign off the walls, but young supporters of this initiative put it back up at night.

There is a lovely book about refugee Basque children in the civil war. It is calledEl Otro Arbol De Guernica by Luis De Castresana.

In this exhibition, Pieter Brueghel's The Magpie on the Gallows has a special relevance to the Peace Treaty project, as it represents the complex forms that peace has taken on over time.

Pieces are arranged in unique themes of territory, history, emblems, military, and the dead are visited. This last theme serves as a hinge that unites both spaces, so at Koldo Mitxelena Cultural Centre the second part of the dead continues, and other themes such as population, economy, weapons, and treaties are explored. We hope to visit this site before the week is over.

The American experience is explored. Tata Vasco, http://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_de_Quirogao and The Lead Books of Sacromonte are presented.

The attempts of the Moors from Granada to reconstruct an imaginary peace and allow for coexistence is also considered.

There are some poems by Olivia Paz.

We have coffee afterwards in the square by the Museo, as the back of St Vincente. http://www.asturnatura.com/turismo/iglesia-de-san-vicente-de-san-sebastian/2969.html

San Sebastián was originally a fishing settlement at the foot of the wooded Monte Urgull , a steep headland that until the connecting spit was built over was virtually an island in its own right. It took us only twenty minutes to walk around the base of the hill yesterday evening along a level path. Now we take a little longer to climb to its summit via the trails and stairways that lead up from the Casco Viejo. Topped by a massive statue of Christ, which towers over the Castillo de la Mota, the hillside intersperses formal gardens and wilder stretches, one of which, on the far side, cradles a small cemetery devoted to English soldiers who died during the First Carlist War, in the 1830s.

Above is the view down to Playa Zuriolla, the city beach for the quieter suburb of Gros which is on the other side of the river. This beach is said to have more waves than La Concha. We will investigate.

The Castillo de la Mota on the top of Monte Urgull houses an enjoyable museum. It takes us through local history beginning with the eleventh century, but focuses especially on the growth of tourism, with some great photos and film footage from the 1920s and 1930s.

Here is the HG at the top, or nearly.

Behind her in the photo below, the glorious crescent of sand that curves all the way west from the old town to the pleasant but unremarkable suburb of Ondarreta, is the Playa de La Concha, which must rank among the finest city beaches in the world. If you happen to see it for the first time at high tide, you may wonder what all the fuss is about, but as the sea withdraws its full expanse is revealed. Every inch tends to be covered in roasting flesh at this time of year. Swimmers escape the crowds by heading out to platforms moored offshore.

On the way back down, we pass flowering hydrangea bushes.

The little pyramidal island, the Isla de Santa Clara, shown in the photo below, is accessible via ferries that set off from near the aquarium, just outside the old town.

Forming a matching pair with Monte Urgull above the old town, the wooded hill of Monte Igeldo rises above the west end of the Playa de Ondarreta. Its summit can be reached via a funicular railway. At the top we hear you can enjoy tremendous views of the bay, and make a note to do that later in the week.

Back home Jeremy Hunt stays in health but otherwise the cabinet is totally reinvented with Boris as Foreign Secretary. A disgrace.