I Wonder Why...?

Queen Elizabeth II started spending her summers in San Sebastian in the mid-twentieth century when bathing in the Bay of Biscay became fashionable among high society. But the close link between the city and royalty became even closer when, after Queen Maria Christina's husband Alfonso XII died, she moved the Court here during the summer. The royal family's summer visits called for a royal country house, and the Queen commissioned the English architect Selden Wornum to design one. The site chosen was a large estate that overlooked the bay, where the San Sebastián El Antiguo Monastery formerly stood.

Opened in 1893, the Miramar Palace is a proper English-style house and also includes some neo-Gothic decorative elements. It still has some of the original rooms, such as the White Room, the Music Room, the Wooden Drawing Room, the Petit Salon, the Library and the Royal Dining Room. Currently owned by the city council, summer courses run by the University of the Basque Country are held there, and it is the headquarters of Musikene, the Basque Country Centro Superior de Música (Higher School of Music), which does not prevent it from being the venue for parties during the Film Festival.