Hi. We are planning a last minute trip to the Basque Region, flying in and out of San Sebastian Spain. We will rent a car so can drive. We were thinking of visiting Biarritz and driving to Balbao and up to the Bordeaux area to tour a vineyard. We were looking at spending a couple of nights in Eugenie les Bains. We want to stay in nice places and preferably pretty towns. Any suggestions on places and beautiful hotels.

Thanks so much!

St.Jean-de-Luz is a neat seaside town to stay in.

Bilbao has the biggest airport in the region so you may find a wider choice of flights landing there. Fine destination on its own, too.

The San Sebastian airport is in Hondarribia on the French border. Consider visiting a few of the French Basque villages in the foothills of the Pyrenees such as Saré, Ascain, Ainhoa, Espellette.

A few thoughts:

ˇ If there is any chance that you will have jet lag, I would strongly encourage you to take public transportation for your first night or two. Although many people are not aware of it, there is mounting evidence that driving with jet lag is just as dangerous -- to yourself and others -- as driving drunk, and nothing you can do will prevent the microsleeps (which you might not even notice) that are the apparent culprit. Seriously -- NOT a good idea, no matter your other constraints and no matter your prior experience! And please be patient with me if you think I’m being overly adamant, but I know too many people who have died or been seriously injured in accidents to which jet lag was a contributing factor, and I know too many people who will spend the rest of their lives dealing with the knowledge that they were responsible for accidents that resulted in multiple deaths, including those of children, all because they were too confident in their ability to drive safely with jet lag. The issue has become a bit of cause célčbre for me….ˇ

ˇ Why visit Bordeaux when there are so many superb wineries in the Spanish Basque region?

ˇ If you don’t already have a guidebook, allow me to recommend the Rough Guide and the Michelin Green.

I´d visit Rioja wine region (Haro, Laguardia, this one in the Basque Rioja), so beautiful, medieval and with lovely wineries and great wine. I would not go all the way to Bordeaux.

This does not sound like a sensible plan. Why would you bother to fly into San Sebastiŕn and then go tootling off to Biarritz (an unfortunately glitzy place loved mainly by surfers and gamblers), and then all the way to Bordeaux...for wine???? There's wine around every corner in Spain and France. Bordeaux is a lovely city, but to zoom up there from Donostia makes hardly any sense at all. Frankly, it makes NO sense. If you want a Bordeaux wine vacation, plan one. Don't tag it onto some place that already has a huge dollop of panache on its own. This is like saying we're going to fly in and out of Boston and spend our week visiting Delaware. WHY?

Stay put in San Sebastián. Visit Bilbao and Getaria. Eat all the pinxtos you can grab. Drink rioja. Spend a day at La Perla by the seaside. If you MUST travel around, go to St-Jean-de-Luz and Ciboure and Hendaye.