Mendi Argia

Mendi argia is Basque for illuminated mountain, and the guests' living room takes the name at its word. Big Round, a sculptural mirror by Sabine Marcelis and Brit van Nerven, catches the sun from a glazed door and passes it round the room. The mountain is Ulia, above Gros. The villa went up on its slopes early in the twentieth century and spent years in decline until Openhouse Studio restored it, keeping the wooden staircase and the stone arches under a roof more than a century old. In one bedroom a bath of pale stone stands in a stone-walled bay, framed in dark carved wood. The infinity pool runs along a brick terrace beside a lift of steel and frosted glass, which makes no claim to the early twentieth century, and over its edge is the city round its bay, with the hills behind.

Recommended for couples who would rather look down on San Sebastián than sleep in the middle of it, and for a family of four. A couple should ask for the Suite Ulia Romántica, with a fireplace and a Japanese bath in black marble; a family gets the Suite Ulia Familiar, 45 square metres with a sofa bed and the pool and the city in view. With no spa and no kids club, the day goes outwards. Ulia Natural Park is five minutes' walk from the door, under beech and holm oak, and Playa de la Zurriola is fifteen minutes down on foot. Then there is the walk back up, which is what the pool is for. The Old Town is four minutes by car, and a taxi is the easier way in. Under the branches of the garden is an old Basque pelota court, the one corner of the illuminated mountain kept in shade.