Day 6 - Zenaruzza Monastery to Gernika
Well, we survived our first night in a Camino albergue, despite the cacophony of snores and other noises in the room last night.
This certainly was not our first night staying in hostel-style accommodations, so we knew what we were getting into, but it did quickly remind us that – while we love the social aspect of hostels/albergues and meeting new people from around the world, dorm rooms aren’t the greatest for sleep.
We also ended up with a particularly loud group of older French and Italian hikers in our room. Maybe it was a cultural or generational difference – or maybe they just didn’t care about anyone outside of their own little group – but they certainly treated the space like it was their own, be damned if there were other people outside of their group staying there as well. They were also very big fans of singing… before bed – and later we’d also hear them a couple of times along the trail. At least they were having a good time, I guess.
Anyway, the room situation was not that great for us, but we did enjoy meeting most of the people at the albergue last night.
This morning, we woke a little before 6:30am, in our separate bunks. I silently gathered the things from my bunk and snuck down my ladder as quiet as a mouse, placing everything in my bag and heading outside the room to wash up, change, and organize myself where I wouldn’t bother anyone. No matter because about 10 minutes after I snuck out, one of the Italians’ wake up alarms went off and they popped up to turn on the light, all of them getting up and making as much noise as they wanted. It’s their room after all!
As soon as they were dressed and packed, they head to the small kitchen upstairs, where some instant coffee, tea, bread, and jam was available - recommended no earlier than 7am, because the kitchen was actually part of the same room as the other dorm room. Naturally, this group would not be beholden to anyone else’s schedule, and so they bust in the door at 6:45am, turning on all of the lights to get what they wanted. Everyone was now awake.
Later in the morning we hiked for a bit with a guy from Ireland, whom we chatted with at the hostel last night. He’d stayed in the other dorm room last night. After having hiked the Camino Frances eight times, he said he could just look at people and tell whether they would be snorers. “It’s like some sort of self-defense mechanism,” he said. To be fair, we also should have been a bit more judgy about our roommates upon arrival and switched rooms, but we also didn’t know that there were still bunks left in the other room. Oh well.
At 7am, Shawn and I went in and made our own coffees, grabbing a piece of bread and some jam. We sat outside, chatting with a few of the other pilgrims before packing up and heading out.
The day was overcast, a thick mist over the mountain tops, the air cool and damp from overnight rain – and what would become more rain in our future. In the distance, we could hear chainsaws roaring, the area harvested heavily for timber, as we saw yesterday hiking the logging roads into Markina-Xemein.
Something old along the trail outside of Marmiz. What? I don’t know. Looks pretty cool though.
Today we had a short day of hiking, only about 11 miles to our next stop in Gernika, which sounded great after the last two rather stout days of climbing.
Other than a couple of short climbs, most of the day was easy walking – quite a bit of paved road through some tiny towns/hamlets and countryside – as well as some trails along fields and through forests.
The weather stayed overcast all morning, with a couple of light umbrella-worthy drizzles as we made our way toward Gernika. The trails were muddy but manageable and we sopped through without much trouble.
While the misty haze of the day obscured most open views, with rain comes other beauty. Dew drops clung to the cattails and leaves along the trail and the colors of the flowers were crisp and vibrant under their watery glaze.
Just past midway through our hike, we went through a very small hamlet with a tavern that had a nice outdoor patio. While it was currently raining and not really a sunny patio type of day, it would be the perfect time to pop inside for a spot of coffee if they were open. And they were.
Apparently everyone else had this thought as well, and soon it seemed that nearly everyone that had stayed at the monastery was slowly filtering in. A very grainy version of what may have been the 1982 version of Conan the Barbarian played on a TV perched in the corner as we ate our bacon and cheese sandwiches and sipped our coffees. I would call it second breakfast, but first breakfast was fairly weak.
The remainder of the hike was fairly similar - some road walking, a bit of overgrown single-track trail, and finally some trails along fields, homes, and forests leading us into Gernika. As it has been with many of the descents into cities along the Camino, we can often see the city for several miles before we actually reach it, which somehow can make the homestretch seem like it takes even longer.
As it was, we would be finished hiking for the day by about 12:30p, so I wasn’t in any particular rush. Soon enough, we were strolling into town.
Gernika is perhaps the most historic of all the cities on the Camino del Norte. During the Spanish Civil War, Franco used the modern military might of his friend Hitler as he shifted focus to the Basque Country. On a market day in April 1937, German planes bombed the city of Gernika unrelentingly for several hours, nearly leveling the town, with 85% of its buildings demolished and over 1600 killed. The devastation in Gernika was the subject of one of Picasso’s most famous paintings, by the same name as the city. Recreations and prints of Picasso’s masterpiece abound throughout the city, though the original hangs in the national art museum in Madrid.
Hiking into Gernika, it was clear that the buildings were more modern than many cities and towns that you see throughout Spain, simply because so much of the town was leveled in 1937. There are very few historic buildings.
Our first stop was, obviously, lunch. We settled along a long plaza of cafes, picking several plates of pintxos - small sandwiches and bruschetta-esque creations - to satisfy our hunger. With a bit of a sweet tooth, we followed this up by another stop at a nearby bakery for a slice of cake and coffee, like we are a hundred years old.
While the albergue experience last night was mostly fun, tonight we opted for a hotel. And, though it wasn’t near check-in time yet, since we were growing cold in the chilly damp air now that we were no longer hiking, we made our way to our adults only hotel north of the town center to see if we could check in early. (I promise it isn’t what you’re thinking... they must just hate kids).
Traditionally, Basque statutes (liberties) were sworn in Gernika beneath an oak tree. The “Tree of Gernika” symbolizes the traditional freedoms of the Biscayans and, by extension, the Basque people as whole.
After warm showers and a bit of relaxing, much to Shawn’s distress, we head back out again. I was keen on seeing the many murals and stained glass windows of historical scenes/events that were housed in Gernika’s Cultural Center. When this ended up being unexpectedly closed for the day, I settled for Gernika’s Peace Museum, which was also very interesting. Its permanent exhibits focused on the events around the disastrous day of bombing in 1937 and the concept of peace itself.
The path through the museum exhibits included rubble from the 1937 bombings encased under glass flooring.
Afterwards, we got dinner at a small bar. Most restaurants did not start their regular dinner menu until 9pm (maybe the only thing we dislike about Spain), so we settled for another selection of pintxos. All great... but we are looking forward to getting a real (hot) meal in Bilbao. Maybe a lunch, since dinner hours in Spain so far seem incomprehensible to us.
And that was our day. Despite its horrific past, Gernika is a beautiful city and we enjoyed walking around and learning a bit more about its history. We were also happy for a fairly chill day of hiking.
Tomorrow we head on to Bilbao, where we will be taking a nice rest after our first week of walking. Can’t wait.