Zarautz to Deba October 5, 2025

Axburr Lnu
Oct 24
3 min read

October 5 and 6, 2025. Walking to Deba and a day off. 13.2 miles, lots of hills and in weather that disintegrated during the day. Staying at a remote guest house called Arriola Txiki.

Lots of hills today on the walk and lots of lovely views. Also amazing are huge banana slugs - in the video summary you can see against my boot for scale.

There are several options for walking the route today and we chose a slightly shorter on that took us off the coast and along the ridges to get a higher, and slightly better view of the coast.

Towards the end of the day we arrived at the Basque Coast Geopark. This is known for its geological Flysch deposits which reflect millions of years of geologic history. The rock layers are pushed up and visible in the cliffs.

The weather got quite rainy and foggy. The trail deteriorated to a point where we thought the trail was gone - it was dangerous and very slippery. We persevered and finally arrived at Elorriaga and the Hermita de San Sebastian where we could see nothing due to fog.

Due to the deteriorating weather, we missed the hotel turn off sign along the trail, meaning we continued walking all the way to Deba. This involved a very slick walk on cobbles down towards the center of town - we were very lucky not to fall. We were also quite lucky that there was an elevator to take us down the last bit.

We weren't too worried, because we figured we would just take a taxi to our remote hotel, forgetting it was a Sunday and no taxis were available. This was depressing because it meant a mile walk up hill on very slippery cobblestones. Before giving up, we got smart and walked to a nice looking hotel asking for help. They were able to cojole a taxi driver to bring us up to the hotel.

The guest house was a converted farm, of sorts, on top of a hill that had been in the family for generations. They had an orchard which contained apple and pear trees and had lovely apple cider, probably the best of the trip. We were greeted by several dogs and cats. The best was the kitten who enjoyed playing with mom's tail. It was on top of a hill about a mile outside of Deba.

We would have preferred a hotel in town and, although clean, this was a bit "rustic" for us. We did at least have an ensuite and a private room. All was forgiven when we got to dinner which was delicious. Home made cider, home grown tomato salad, home made cream of veg soup, local cheese, wonderfully cooked chicken breast. Night 2 was less enjoyable as the main was beef which was so tough I couldn't eat it. Another nice thing was that we were able to eat on our own and other guests were in other eating areas of the hotel.

Breakfast was equally delicious both mornings with "traditional" food like eggs, toast, etc. Breakfast morning 2 was less enjoyable as a group of 20 hikers arrived the day before and ten ate in the same area as we. The issue was they weren't very inclusive and managed to stand in front of the food/coffee area.

There are several languages in the region and the placemats at breakfast had helpful phrases in each of them.

Day 2 we took the regional train to a nearby town called Eibar. We had to walk down the hill to town and finally saw a sign ("the" sign?) which was very far from our route into town yesterday. On the way to the train, we stopped by the Church of Santa Maria considered a national monument of Basque gothic architecture. Eibar's claim to fame are 1) a cement block and 2) their government house.

Not to be very interesting place, but the train ride was pretty and went along the Deba River. After returning to Deba we decided to have lunch at the lovely hotel that found us the taxi yesterday. The walk to the hotel was along the river which was full of fish, type unknown.