The Miramar Palace sits on a headland between Playa de la Concha and the smaller Playa de Ondarreta, built in 1893 as a summer residence for the Spanish royal family. It was the presence of the royals — who came every summer for nearly four decades — that established San Sebastián as a fashionable resort and drove the construction of the elegant 19th-century city centre.
The palace itself is a fine Victorian building in the English manor house style, designed by Selden Wornum with terraced gardens that slope down to the sea. The interior is not generally open to the public (the palace is owned by the city and used for conferences), but the gardens are and the views from the headland are exceptional — you look west along the coast, with Playa de Ondarreta below and Monte Igueldo rising behind it. The garden café is a pleasant place to sit on a summer afternoon.