Searching for activities in between pintxos seems arduous when all that's on the brain is your next meal. In this food capital, time is best spent delving deeper into Basque cuisine. Enter Mimo, a cookery school offering classes covering everything from pintxos to paella. Learn how to recreate the city's most famous small bites, or join a show-cooking experience in a luxurious, low-lit private dining atmosphere.

Substitute a museum for a farmhouse and its sweeping grounds, exchange some oil on canvas for towering rock and iron sculptures, and you have an idea of what Chillida Leku, the art space dedicated to artist Eduardo Chillida, is like. Take a city bus to the outskirts to see this native son's breathtaking work against green hills and stony mountains, as he intended.

Zurriola is "the surfer's beach" because it has the best break in the city. Several schools offer one-off classes, but Pukas, which has been operating since 1982, is the most long-standing. Not fussed by boarding? In the summer, the waves settle down enough for swimmers to splash around here.

Atop one of San Sebastián's three mountains sits an amusement park that time forgot. Dating back to 1912, the off-the-beaten-path fairground makes for a perfectly retro adventure. Chug along the funicular to the top of the mountain and set off on a nostalgic day out. Old-fashioned games, a tongue-in-cheek terror house and a ride on the "Swiss mountain" await.