This is the third in a four-part series that began here.

The list of cities on earth whose setting can compete with San Sebastián, Spain, is a short one. Called Donostia by the Basques, its centerpiece is La Concha, a shell-shaped bay wrapped by a beach for nearly its entire length. The Parte Vieja (old town) wedges between the western end of La Concha and the broad Urumea River, and the grand shopping avenues strike out south from it. Three sentinels stand watch over the harbor: a Rio-reminiscent statue of Jesus on Monte Urgull above the Parte Vieja, a tower atop the highest point at Monte Igeldo at the other end of the mouth, and the striking island of Santa Klara between them. Miramar, a Tudor manor home built by the Spanish royals, sits upon the one interruption in the beach, and the city rises up gracefully into the Basque hills as it recedes from the water.

San Sebastián is too pretty not to have been discovered. It may not yet be on the level of the French Riviera or some of its Italian counterparts, but it is a city filled with beautiful people being beautiful, of large crowds and moments when one will find oneself surrounded by people speaking French and German and English. But I am a sucker for it, unapologetic for my basic tastes: incredible food scene, stunning scenery, and a stellar beach, an urban ballet that becomes an easy party into the night, that Spanish triumph of life done right.

Andrew and I stay in a hotel tucked just beneath Monte Urgull and just off the water, alongside a staircase up the Monte that becomes a party scene every night. The room is cramped and unremarkable, but the setting is on point. Just stepping out of it is immersion in the Spanish street scene, the crowd already building as others wander down to the waterfront, basking in the haze over La Concha as the sun sets behind Monte Igeldo. Here the pintxos crawl goes from an idle stroll to full-fledged fiesta, thousands from around the world seeking out the delicacies tucked into tiny storefronts, lines building where the most famed chefs produce the hallmarks of Basque cuisine alongside their own experimental takes. It is a culinary paradise.

On the first night we do a classic San Sebastián pintxos tour. We start at Ganbara, which Anthony Bourdain called “my favorite place,” and slurp down monkfish, foie, shrimp, crab, and croquetas that melt in the mouth. Despite a massive crowd it is a well-oiled machine, a carefully tended line down the street invited to tables, and there is no rush once seated (or stood, I suppose, as we are at a table on the street). The same cannot be said for several places we try afterward, which are a Lord of the Flies competition for counter space or seats, and in the end we are relieved simply to let a waiter guide us to a table on Konstitizio Plaza, even if the fare is nothing memorable. At some point in the night everyone heeds a silent summons to a place that churns out cheesecake by the boatload, and while it can’t match Casa Rufo it is satisfying, and for a nightcap we sample the local macrobrew, Keler, which is bad.

The next day is San Sebastián in an ideal state. We walk the length of La Concha’s beaches and ride the funicular up Monte Igeldo, an overlook plus amusement park that includes a “rio misterioso” (a lazy river that seems precariously close to the edge of the cliff). We befriend the keeper of the tower at the very top of the mountain, perhaps because we, unlike the Brits in line in front of us, understand that, when she says “tunel” and makes a tunnel with her hands, she is trying to convey the word “tunnel.” We ask her why Monte Igeldo’s puttering roller coaster, which would normally be called a montaña rusa (literally, Russian Mountain) in Spanish, is called a montaña suiza (Swiss Mountain) and she explains this was a Franco era maneuver to avoid any hint of communism and suggest as much neutrality as possible. She rants about Trump at us for a while but drifts into sadness that her own daughters haven’t given her more than one grandchild, a commentary on that we do not have time to unpack before the next tourists come to request their tickets.

The guardian of the tower on Monte Igeldo is not off the mark. Spain’s birth rate has plummeted to 1.1, nearly half the rate a population needs to stay even. Even with increasing immigration, that trend plus long life expectancies could leave the nation with a financially terrifying ratio of 1.5 workers per retiree by midcentury and a whopping 33% population drop by 2100. The below replacement birth rate is now a reality across the entire developed world excepting Israel, though it is particularly acute in Spain. (Neighboring France, meanwhile, is keeping pace with the somewhat more stable United States.) One could speculate that societal change has been particularly impactful in countries with the longest histories of harsh gender divides and machismo (see Spain’s companions at the bottom of the birth rate list such as Italy, South Korea, and Japan), but it is only a matter of degree; whatever the cause of this digital era birth plunge, the trend is real, and only just now starting to alter Spanish life.

There are so many things I adore about Spanish culture that it is somewhat haunting to think about this looming collapse, a concern that all these lovely and sustainable Spanish lifestyle choices are caught up in a culture that is choosing, either intentionally or through happenstance, not to sustain its very own self. The Madrids and San Sebastiáns of Spain will likely get by just fine thanks to in-migration, though they will have to fight that very European fight to avoid becoming total museums or tourist playgrounds. But things are different in the older towns and dusty cities in the center of the country, which I have come to know both on this trip and on my Camino across Galicia last year.

My lifetime may see the diminishment and even death of many pockets of Spanish culture, of some of these funny little cultural quirks that make this country so easy to visit again and again. But unlike American boomtowns, which are rarely built to last, the stone walls of Spanish towns ensure a very old history will fade very slowly. Historical memory runs deeper, faces a proportionately deeper loss, and it should bring out deeper fixations. Even in an era of Trump unleashed, successful navigation of reality does not come in day-to-day headlines or a doom loop of algorithmic content, but instead in finding ways to live in deeper touch with both the past and the future.

Achieving that state is easy to do among the attractive humans on display on La Concha beach this afternoon. After catching some sun we spend the evening in Gros, which is across the Urumea River from the Parte Vieja. This is an updated version of San Sebastián as a beach town, its apartment blocks well-built but modern, its beach dominated by locals with genuine surfing and volleyball skill. We have beers at Basqueland Brewing, pintxos at a good wine bar, and dinner at a Basque-Mexican fusion place, all of which deliver. Tonight’s nightcap comes on the steps of the Santa Maria basilica amid the crowd of revelers, easy laughter across a mix of tongues, and never am I more relaxed on this trip than on those steps beneath that gothic facade with a whisper of change flowing in on a cool breeze off the Cantabrian Sea.

Day three reveals a different San Sebastián. Gone is the riviera feel: suddenly it is a moody seaside town from the Pacific Northwest. We venture out in a light drizzle and climb through the pines on Monte Urgull to a fortress atop the harbor, ramparts and cannons left behind by Napoleon’s French and the British who fought their way into Basque Country by sea. (They appear never to have left.) The foreboding mood continues as we visit the gothic cathedral, shelter from rain over a long lunch involving beets and mackerel, and tour the local aquarium, the first half of which is a historical exhibit on Basque seafaring and fishing in these choppy waters instead of the expected tanks of fish. By the time we emerge, some stray sunlight casts a delicate glow, and we can stroll the promenade along La Concha again. Over in Gros, the surfers are all over the big waves thrown up by the sea. An inky dark squid seems an appropriate entrée at Bodegón Alejandro, a first-rate basement restaurant in the Parte Vieja, and we stroll a little and take that nightcap one last time.

San Sebastián could just be a dream state place, one that gives of endless days on a beach and climbing hills and long dinners and drinks among friends. And yet it still has history, still has some semblance of a local consciousness even under the crush of tourists. The final day showed a depth that eternal Caribbean bliss cannot muster, gave me new appreciation for those November gale days back in my own similarly sized hometown back in northern Minnesota. Seeing San Sebastián even makes me wonder a little more about what Duluth could yet be. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

Part four is here.