Day 7 - Gernika to Bilbao
Date: Friday June 21
Start: Gernika, Biscay, Basque Country
End: Bilbao, Biscay, Basque Country
Daily Mileage: ~19.7mi (31.7km)
Total Mileage: ~98mi (157.7km)
When I woke up this morning, I checked the weather. Overcast all day both in Gernika and Bilbao – so likely all along our hike. No rain in the forecast though, so that was good.
About thirty minutes later, we were downstairs in the hotel lobby putting on raincoats and popping our umbrellas. It was pouring out. Have I mentioned that Apple’s weather app is not great in Spain?
As we head down the block, I checked Google Maps for cafes that were open. It was not particularly early - around 8am. I searched “cafes”. Dozens popped up around the city. The central downtown area, where we were headed, was full of them. Then I filtered for “Open Now”. Three options across the city. Lol. Have I mentioned that Spain is not an early riser?
Shawn walks by the Iglesia de Santa Maria
Anyway, we made our way to one of the three options, which was – unsurprisingly, fairly busy. The place to be. Likely because it was one of the only places to be. Soon we sat with small ham sandwiches and coffees, listening to the rain outside. A man sat at a table nearby. His own cup of coffee steaming as he opened the paper. Now that is a proper way to start the day.
Our next move, on the other hand, was going to be a walk in the rain. Today would be our longest mileage day yet - nearly 20 miles to Bilbo. Hopefully it would not rain all day. (Flash forward: it would not).
As luck would have it, it stopped raining before we were even out of Gernika.
We rejoined the Camino route downtown, following it past the Gernika Peace Museum, the Assembly House, the enshrined trunk of an old oak tree, the public school, and to the outskirts of town. Somewhere along this stretch, we closed up our umbrellas. And not long after this, we shimmied out of our raincoats as we walked.
We saw several other pilgrims on their way out of town – most adorned in long rain ponchos covering both themselves and their packs. With their trekking poles and walking sticks, it looked like a long procession of colorful Gandalf the Grays... all headed out of Gernika. They ponchos also looked very hot, especially as it was no longer raining.
On the outskirts of town, we left the pavement and began our climb out of Gernika, the single-track trail performing double-duty as both a trail and a river, a stream of water cascading through the rocks down the path. This would be fun.
The word of the morning was mud. As in, the trails were very muddy. I wanted to learn this word in Spanish, though upon looking it up, I was presented with many possible words. Lodo? Barro? When I used an example sentence with mud as an adjective, I got another word entirely. So I’m not sure I learned anything new. Oh well. I tried.
The point remains, we spent our morning walking through a lot of it. Wet mud. Sloppy mud. Sticky mud. Slippy mud. So much mud. Our shoes squelched along.
The trail climbed up up up out of Gernika through the forest on the aforementioned trails of mud, undulating between steep slippy climbs through the mud and more gentle and flat sections through the mud.
Though no longer raining, it was still overcast. The occasional patch of blue looked like it was trying to poke through the clouds, though most of the morning remained gray. It looked as though my sunglasses would catch the free ride to Bilbao, riding on my hat on standby, their services ultimately unnecessary.
After the initial three mile ascent through the forest, much of the rest of the morning carried us along country roads, by fields, pastures of goats, chicken coops, and garden plots. We popped in and out of gravel roads and rocky pathways along the hillsides and through forest until our descent into the town of Larrabetzu.
At just over 10 miles, we were a little more than halfway through our walk to Bilbao and it was the perfect place to stop for lunch. Larrabetzu was also one of the only logical places to stop for lunch along the route, so that helped dictate our choices as well.
Walking into the outskirts of town, there were several large murals of graffiti painted with statements for freedom for the Basque Country and declarations that we were NOT in Spain. There is a strong separatist movement in Basque Country, which we’d heard, though - other than the Basque flags, we hadn’t seen much writ large on the landscape like this yet, literally written large here. We also can’t read (or understand) Basque; however, all of the signs/graffiti here were actually in English – which seemed odd – but maybe they wanted foreigners to be able to read it as they traveled through?
Arriving into the central area of town just before 12:30p, we actually didn’t have many choices for places to eat, but settled into a small bar/restaurant that would begin serving their set menu del dia (menu of the day) at 1pm. The restaurant flew a large flag of the emblematic Camino shell along its facade – a calling card to the pilgrims that were hiking through town – which mostly seemed to work. We were a bit early, but decided to wait.
At 1pm, the zesty waitress hopped into action – flying around the bar and occupied tables with baskets of bread and taking orders. There were three options for ‘Primeros’ (starters) and three options for ‘Segundos’ (main courses), all of which she rattled off in very very quick Spanish. We understood the options for the most part and, no matter what we selected, she would kiss her fingers, letting us know that we had made the best possible selection.
For our starters, we had each selected the lentil soup, nice on a chilly day. It was delicious - ‘a very typical dish in Spain’, we heard a man telling one of the other tables. The bowl of soup was big enough to be plenty for a meal, and we still had another course coming.
We didn’t know exactly what shape the next course was taking, though knew it would be red meat of some sort. The word ‘burrito’ had been used in the description, which I doubted meant what we thought of a burrito (Mexican style) as I haven’t seen anything like that here. And we were right. It ended up being meatballs, which were also very good.
We followed up everything with a coffee. Would this help to settle our very full stomachs? Unknown. But this is how we lunch now.
We were so stuffed... someone was going to need to roll us the last 9+ miles to Bilbao.
There was good news and bad news. Luckily, the majority of the route to Bilbao was pretty easy (yay!). Unfortunately, it was not that scenic. The first 4+ miles were actually a dreaded road walk (ugh!) – almost entirely along the roadside/sidewalk stretching along a busy road. Other than the impressive Iglesia de Santa Maria and the many cyclists training along the route, there was not much to see.
We walked on like this to the town of Zamudio, making our way past gas stations, industrial buildings, and the graffitied train station (yes, it did cross our minds to take the train, but we are still devout to our pilgrimage).
After four miles or so, our route would finally take a decisive left, gradually routing us out of town, over the freeway, and back into the woods for our final climb of the day. At another 1000 feet – after already climbing over 2000 feet today – it wasn’t nothing, but it was nice to be back in the woods and the going wasn’t too terrible.
AND – at the top – popping out onto a small paved road through the countryside – there was a random vending machine. Just set up in the middle of nowhere. Like we were in Japan or something. What a deal. Lucky for us, we had some Euro and, after a very hot/humid climb, it seemed like as good a time as any for a fizzy beverage.
Random vending maching with a cross-eyed reflection of me.
And so, we walked down the road sipping our Perriers, because we are fizzy water people now. And we do fancy things like sip vending machine beverages on country roads.
Making our final 2+ mile descent down Mount Avril into Bilbao, the route again varied between back roads and sections of trail, through bits of forest and past parks overlooking the city. Bilbao is the biggest city in all of Basque Country and all of northern Spain. Though it is near the sea, it sits tucked in from the coast a ways, the Nervión River wrapping through the central part of the city.
Basilica de Begoña
Entering the city, we passed the imposing Basilica de Begoña – a gothic church completed in the 16th century – and continued down the steep stairs/cobbled path along the Calle del Cruz (street of the cross) to the Cathedral de Santiago in the heart of Bilbao’s Casco Viejo (Old Town). The Cathedral of Santiago actually predates the city of Bilbao itself, constructed in the 14th century.
Calle del Cruz
And this was the end of our hike for the day. We wound our way through the streets of the Casco Viejo, where we’d booked a hotel for the next few nights since we are taking not one but TWO zeros in Bilbao. What a treat.
After checking in and showering, we spent the remainder of the evening taking care of a few errands – including a trip to the laundromat to wash our stinky hiking clothes and the procurement of an outlet adapter, as I managed to leave mine behind in a hotel a couple nights ago 😬
We finished our night up with gelato in the plaza near Arenal Park. A gorgeous, cool summer evening, there were plenty of people out and about, walking along the river, chatting on park benches, and spilling out of the restaurants and bars of the old town. When things are in full swing (i.e. dinner time), we will have long been tucked into our hotel room. Maybe one day we will stay out for a Spanish dinner hour? (Unlikely)
While today was not the most exciting of our hiking days, the majority of this first week was fantastic – great weather, great scenery, great food. Since we are taking a double zero here in Bilbao, I’ll be taking a break from blogging tomorrow and will return with a bit of a recap of our weekend here in Bilbao on Sunday night.
Enjoy your weekend!