The town

Next to the city of San Sebastián, Zarautz is located in an extensive plain of the province of Guipuzkoa and opened to the sea, being therefore an attractive and modern tourist locality and of services. Its beach is longest of the Guipuzcoan coast and culminates in its Eastern end in dunes that serves as habitat to numerous species of flora and fauna.

It enjoys natural and landscaping surroundings privileged by its location between the sea and the mountain, populated with dispersed small farms. From their historical past testimonies have arrived at our interesting days, that next to the samples of contemporary art cause an interesting route by the history and the art of the village. Its tourist tradition like seat of the royalty and aristrocracy in the XlX century, reflected in the architecture of palaces and lordly houses, constitutes another one of the signs of identity of Zarautz. All it turns it in a tourist and friendly city, symbol of quality of life, that their inhabitants share proud with the visitors.

Art & Gastronomy

The Cantabrian offers to the coastal localities the best of its fruits, products that comprise inseparable of the local gastronomy. The fish and the seafood are the fundamental base of many of the typical Basque specialties.

Zarautz, coastal and tourist locality par excellence, is a suitable place to taste all these plates of the sea.

The Txakoli is a fresh and light, smoothly frothy white wine and with a slight acidity, whose origin data of back centuries. Txakoli of Zarautz, including within the Denomination of Origin of Txakoli de Getaria, is considered like one of txakolis of greater quality. The art is very rooted in zarautz, which lodges innumerable sculptures of artists very recognized, all over the village.

Also it tells to museums and exhibitions throughout all the year.

These earth have seen be born to innumerable artists of the stature of Eduardo Chillida, Jorge the Oteizas… who left us.

The beach

The beach in Zarautz is the largest in Gipuzkoa, and one the longest in the Cantabric coast; that’s why it’s commonly known as “the Queen of beaches”. Queen Elisabeth II of Spain chose this town as the bathing place for her family and her courtship in 1865, which in turn attracted the middle and aristocratic classes of the time.

In more recent times, the sands of Zarautz have witnessed the visits of the King and Queen of Belgium, King Edward of England and the previous monarch of Spain, Alfonso XIII, who was joined by the Queen, Victoria Eugenia. But as the slogan goes, Zarautz is also “the Queens´ beach”.

Surfing

Surfing is the preferred sport of the town, for which its known throughout the surfing world. This surfing town has given renown surfers of the quality of Aritz Aranburu, Hodei Collazo, Ibon Amatriain, Asier Muniain… Zarautz hosts a WQS series event, The Pro Surf Zarautz 5 star.

The Surf on the beach of Zarautz is very complex, dependant upon atmospheric conditions as well as the changing conditions of the sand surface. Throughout the year the prevalent incidence of the waves is perpendicular to the coast, given the open setting to the Cantabric sea. The waves come in a regular set of breakers, starting to break from the east and finishing on the west of the beach, that is a regular breaker. This pattern is only broken where the sand surface has a sudden pot hole or a deeper area where the breaker cannot grow and break evenly. The starting line of the surf in normal circumstances sets off from low tide at Iteco and Mollarri, whilst the frequency, the type of breaker and speed of the same is usually determined by the meteorology at any given time.