The first thing I did at Arima Hotel & Spa in San Sebastián was swim on the roof with a forest underneath me.
Not a view of a forest across a car park. Actual treetops, right there past the edge of the pool, and somewhere behind them a whole city that I could not hear at all.
That is roughly the whole point of the place, as it turns out. But I only understood that later, after the team explained what the name means.
Arima means soul
Arima is the Basque word for soul. When I first read it on the booking confirmation I thought it was a nice marketing word. It is not. It is the brief the whole building was designed to.
Arima Hotel & Spa is a family business, and you notice that before anyone tells you. The welcome is personal in the way that chain hotels train for and rarely manage. Asier, who showed me around, kept calling it “our house”, and he did not sound like someone reading from a script. The design is very personal to the owner and tells her story, from the materials to the colours.
And the colours are the interesting part. Everything inside is natural: wood, stone, soft greens and greys, a lot of glass looking out at the trees. The idea, the team told me, is that the building stays calm and neutral so that people bring the colour in. The rest of the palette comes from the forest outside the window. It sounds like the kind of thing a designer says in a presentation. Then you sit in the lobby for twenty minutes and realise nothing is shouting at you. No mood lighting, no giant logo, no scented candle the size of a bucket. Just quiet.
If you have spent time in Scandinavia, the feeling will be familiar. Elegant, clean, a little bit restrained. Coming from the North, it felt oddly familiar, which is a slightly strange thing to say about a hotel in Gipuzkoa.
Where Arima Hotel & Spa actually is (and why that matters)
This is the honest bit first, because it decides whether Arima is right for you.
Arima is not in the old town. It sits on Paseo de Miramón, right next to the Miramón forest park, on the green edge of San Sebastián. By car the centre is about 15 minutes away. There is a city bus too: the L28 runs roughly every 8 minutes and takes about 20 minutes, and the L17 comes every 15 minutes. So you can absolutely do dinner in Parte Vieja and come back. You just cannot stumble out of the hotel door into a pintxos bar.
For me this was the attraction, not the drawback. San Sebastián is wonderful and it is also, especially in summer, loud and full. Having a place to retreat to where the loudest thing is the birds is worth a bus ride. But if your idea of a San Sebastián trip is walking everywhere and never looking at a timetable, stay in the centre and come to Arima for the spa instead (more on day access below).
Getting there is easy. San Sebastián airport is about 22 km away, Biarritz airport around 50 km and Bilbao around 100 km. The hotel has 62 covered parking spaces and 6 electric car chargers. If you are doing the Basque coast by car, and honestly you should, it is a very practical base. I planned my whole 7-day Basque Country road trip around having a car, and Arima fits that route well.
For a rental car in the Basque Country, I compare prices on DiscoverCars. It searches the big rental companies and local ones at once, and the cancellation rules are shown clearly before you book.
The building is quietly clever
Arima was the first hotel in Spain to be certified as a Passivhaus building, and it is one of the largest Passivhaus hotels in the world. Passivhaus is a German construction standard, and in plain words it means the building is so well insulated and sealed that it uses up to 70% less energy than a conventional hotel.
You do not see any of that. What you feel is the side effect: silence. Thick insulation keeps the temperature steady and the outside noise out, and the whole place is remarkably quiet.
The team calls their approach soulstainable, which is a word I would normally roll my eyes at. In practice it means small, sensible things. Recycling bins built into the rooms. Refillable, biodegradable toiletries instead of a tray of tiny plastic bottles. A bike room where cyclists can store, wash and repair their bikes. Nothing preachy, nobody lecturing you about your carbon footprint at check-in. It is simply built in.
The rooms
There are 69 rooms, and here is the one practical tip that matters most: book at least a Superior room.
The Standard rooms (22 m²) look out onto the street. Everything from Superior (25 m²) upwards, meaning the Junior Suites and Suites too, faces the forest. You are coming here for the trees. Do not save money on the one thing that makes the place.
Inside, the rooms follow the same Nordic logic as the rest of the hotel: natural materials, a lot of light, a proper rain shower, Nordic duvets, a pillow menu, Nespresso and herbal teas. Nothing flashy. Everything works.
Foresta Wellness: the spa is the reason to come
The spa is called Foresta Wellness, it covers 1,200 m² and it is for adults only. That last detail changes everything. It is quiet. It felt private and calm, the kind of spa where you slow down without anyone asking you to.
The design is Nordic again, but the intention behind it is less about looking nice and more about getting you back into your own body. Connect with yourself, connect with the nature outside the glass. Marta, who runs the spa, described the approach as holistic: body, mind and soul, all three. Again, in a brochure I would have skipped that sentence. In the water it made sense.
The magnesium pool is the thing I keep telling people about. It is not a small bath you book for yourself. The whole pool is filled with warm water full of magnesium mineral salts (Epsom salts), kept at around 37 to 38 degrees, with hydromassage jets. Marta’s advice was to give it twenty minutes. Not two, not five while checking your phone on the side. Twenty. Her argument is that twenty minutes in that pool gives your body and your head the kind of complete relaxation people normally book a separate treatment for. I was sceptical. I did the twenty minutes. She was right.
Next to it there is a hydrotherapy pool at 34 degrees with different massage jets, and a cold contrast pool for the brave.
Saunas and treatments at Arima Hotel & Spa
The saunas. I had the infrared sauna, which is gentler than a classic sauna and perfect after the magnesium pool. When I visited in June, the rest of the sauna area was still being expanded. It has since been finished. There is now a proper Finnish sauna, a steam room with eucalyptus and menthol, and full-spectrum infrared saunas. Asier sent me photos afterwards and admitted they do not really capture how the new space feels, with the forest view and a lot more room. I believe him, and I will go back to test it. As a person from a sauna country, I will be strict.
Treatments use Alqvimia, a Spanish brand of organic botanical cosmetics and aromatherapy, and the rituals are Spanish spa rituals rather than an imported Balinese menu. There are two single and two double treatment rooms. When I asked the team which treatment people love most, the answer came without hesitation: the couples massage. Their reasoning is that you do the whole experience together and leave with a shared calm, which is apparently good for a relationship. I am reporting this faithfully and without comment.
There is also a gym with Technogym equipment and forest views, plus yoga, pilates and barre classes.
Can you use the spa without staying? Yes. Arima Hotel & Spa sells a spa pass for non-guests: €30 for 90 minutes in the water circuit. You can book it on the hotel website. If you are staying in the city centre, this is the best rainy afternoon in San Sebastián.
The rooftop pool
Back to where I started. The rooftop pool at Arima Hotel & Spa is outdoors, infinity-edged, surrounded by loungers and white umbrellas, and it looks straight over the treetops of Miramón. It was very quiet up there, which is not something you can say about many hotel pools in summer.
One important catch: it is seasonal. Officially it opens from 15 June to 15 September. I was lucky and got to swim in it in June. If you come in October hoping for a sunset swim, you will be looking at a covered pool. The indoor spa is open all year, so in the colder months that is where your relaxing happens anyway.
Breakfast, and a tortilla worth getting up for
Breakfast is served at Tilia, the café and bar with big windows onto the forest. I am going to be brief because I could go on for a while. The tortilla de patatas was genuinely excellent, the kind that is soft in the middle and makes you reconsider every hotel omelette you have ever eaten. Everything else was fresh too: jamón, smoked salmon, a big choice of cheese, fresh fruit with cherries and kiwi, pastries, yoghurt and granola, and a clearly marked gluten-free corner. No sad buffet trays that have been sitting there since six.
Tilia also does lunch, and it is a good one. On the day I arrived I had tostas topped with anchovies, tomato and cheese, and an iced coffee. Simple, fresh, and exactly the right amount of food before an afternoon in a spa.
The gastronomic restaurant, Misura, mixes Basque cooking with influences from other kitchens and works a lot with local, seasonal produce. It is only open at weekends and during high season, so if you are staying midweek outside summer, plan to eat in town. Given that you are in San Sebastián, that is not exactly a punishment. My list of the best places to eat in San Sebastián is a good place to start.
Who Arima is for (and who it isn’t)
I would recommend Arima a lot to two very different kinds of people.
Busy people who need a reset, fast. If you are in the Basque Country for work, or you are driving through and your nervous system needs a break, one night here does more than a long weekend somewhere noisy. Check in, magnesium pool, sauna, a night in a quiet room, tortilla, leave. It is a pit stop for the soul, and I say that with only a small amount of irony.
Travellers who collect spas. If you like trying new and inspiring wellness places, Arima is one of the most interesting spa hotels on this coast right now, especially with the new sauna area.
It is not for you if you want to be in the middle of the nightlife, you are travelling with children and want a family pool (the spa is adults only), or you are looking for classic old-world grand hotel glamour. For that, Biarritz has options, and I have put them all in my guide to the best spa hotels in the Basque Country.
Tours and experiences in San Sebastián
Practical information
- Address: Paseo de Miramón 162, 20014 Donostia-San Sebastián
- To the centre: about 15 minutes by car, bus L28 (every 8 min) or L17 (every 15 min)
- Airports: San Sebastián 22 km, Biarritz about 50 km, Bilbao about 100 km
- Parking: 62 covered spaces, 6 EV chargers
- Rooms: 69; forest views from Superior category upwards
- Spa: Foresta Wellness, 1,200 m², adults only, spa pass available for non-guests
- Rooftop pool: seasonal, 15 June to 15 September
- Food: Tilia café-bar (breakfast and lunch), Misura restaurant (weekends and high season)
- Member of: Small Luxury Hotels of the World, Considerate Collection
So, is Arima Hotel & Spa worth it?
Yes. Not because it is the fanciest hotel in San Sebastián, because it isn’t trying to be. It is worth it because it does the one thing it promises, and does it properly. You arrive with a full head. You leave with a quiet one.
Arima means soul. After twenty minutes in that magnesium pool, I stopped thinking it was a marketing word.
Read more from the Basque Country
- The 8 best spa hotels in the Basque Country
- My 7-day Basque Country road trip
- Best restaurants in San Sebastián
- A perfect spring Saturday in Biarritz
- Surfing in Hendaye as a beginner
- Guéthary, the prettiest Basque village
- Bardenas Reales, Spain’s desert
Arima hosted my stay as a press visit. The opinions here are my own, and if something had not been good, I would have written that too.
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