Eat One, Feed One: Five Stops in Two Neighbourhoods

For every person who takes this tour, the operator donates a meal to the city's soup kitchen. That is the mechanism, stated plainly and without further ceremony, and it is the reason to pick this one over an otherwise similar walk.

Three hours, eight guests at most, five stops across two different neighbourhoods, with under ten minutes of walking between each. Most of the time is spent eating.

One pintxo and one drink at every stop, local wine and local drinks, and the whole adds up to a full meal. Pintxos, pronounced pin-choss, are not tapas and Basques will tell you so: a tapa is what comes free with a drink further south, a pintxo is ordered, paid for, and increasingly cooked to order.

You meet behind the Buen Pastor cathedral, between the post office and the Koldo Mitxelena library, at the white benches, and the route works up through the city past La Concha and the Plaza de la Constitución into the old quarter, where it finishes.

What the guide is actually teaching is how to navigate the scene alone afterwards: what to order, how to pay, when to leave.

Wheelchair accessible, suitable for all fitness levels, though you are on your feet most of the time, so wear the right shoes and leave the backpack behind, since bars here are tight. Guided in English. Extra food and drink can be bought if the full meal is not enough.