Dog Walkers in San Sebastián, Spain

San Sebastián is wedged between three hills and two beaches, and that geometry shapes everything. Urgull closes off the Parte Vieja, Igueldo finishes La Concha to the west, and Ulía separates Gros from the Pasaia coastline. All three carry paths and all three can be climbed on foot from the centre, which turns a modestly sized city into a place with a surprising variety of routes: in a single morning you can pass from the flat promenade of the bay to a woodland trail two hundred metres up.

The climate is pure Atlantic, with rain spread through the whole year and many days of covered sky. Summers are cool and pleasant — rarely uncomfortable — and winters mild but damp. What needs watching are the galernas: abrupt inrushes of north-westerly wind that flip the weather in minutes and, on the Paseo Nuevo hung over the sea beneath Urgull, raise waves that leap the parapet.

The city is flat along its central strip, with Amara and Gros very easy to cover, and the river Urumea draws an axis linking the interior to the river mouth. Cristina Enea, the former park of the Dukes of Mandas in Egia, is the green space of reference: mature trees, peacocks at liberty and an English-garden atmosphere that does not quite match the rest of the city — and is memorable for precisely that reason.

One practical note for the summer: in the bathing season, access with a dog to La Concha and Zurriola is restricted, so the beach plan gets swapped for the hills or the walk along the mouth of the Urumea.