San Sebastian day tours

THERE ARE FOUR OF US 70+ YEARS OF AGE SPENDING TWO DAYS IN BORDEAUX FOLLOWING A SCENIC RIVER CRUISE. WE WOULD LIKE TO DO A DAY TOUR TO SAN SEBASTIAN VISITING THE SIGHTS AND A LEISURELY LUNCHEON AT ONE OF ITS MANY FINE RESTAURANTS. IS THERE A LOCAL OPERATOR THAT OFFERS THIS?

P. WONG, EASTWOOD

I can't find a tour that will take you from Bordeaux to San Sebastian. The only way to do this would be to take a train to San Sebastian and although it's just over 200 kilometres between the two cities the journey takes more than three hours on the fastest train, which is astonishing for Europe. If you were to travel by train you could then do a tour with San Sebastian Food sansebastianfood.com, which operates English-speaking tours of the city's markets and bars, and they're sensational. However it would be an exhausting day and it could well be that your schedule doesn't give you enough time for an overnight stop in San Sebastian, which would be ideal.

Bordeaux itself is no slouch in the food and wine department and your time there should give plenty to fill your plate if food is the focus of your visit. If you want to experience Basque cooking, and seafood in particular, what you could do is take a train to Biarritz​, just over two hours away, a handsome city in its own right, with a regional cuisine that owes much to the Basque kitchen.