Tuesday 31 October - Lanestosa and Laredo

Where's Bertie? He's back in Laredo, in the same side road/car park as he was in at the end of last week.
Weather: glorious!

The weather forecast once again held true and we awoke to clear blue skies...

...meaning it was no hardship to don the walking shoes and head off up a hill.

The walk (you can read more about it/see more photos by clicking here ) wasn't anywhere near as interesting or pleasing as our trip up Peña del Moro on Sunday, but it stretched the legs and did give us a good vantage point to see where we had been on that outing:


Our arrival back at the Aire coincided with the departure of our German neighbours, who left behind them an electric point that would remain active until late this evening. We thus helped ourselves to a bit of their left over power and by the time we left a few hours later we had cooked lunch on the electric ring, filled our flasks with boiling water and recharged a few devices. Unfortunately, we forgot that I was supposed to be cutting Mick's hair. Who knows whether we'll find mains electricity again on this trip?

We had pondered staying in Lanestosa for another night. We also pondered taking the direct route over the hills to our next intended stopping point. We did neither, opting instead to add a few miles to the journey by coming via Laredo, mainly because it's such a good (i.e. flat and off-road) place to go for a run in the morning.

We would likely stay another couple of days, but there's a spell of *very* wet weather coming in at the end of the week, so it seems more expedient to go and look at some new places whilst the weather is good, so we will make an effort to run early in the morning, and continue on westwards.

Monday 30 October - Lanestosa

Where's Bertie? He's still at the Aire at Lanestosa. The Brits have now gone. He is sandwiched by German and Spanish vans tonight.
Weather: Rain until late afternoon.

The weather was as forecast: wet. Hibernation seemed like a good plan and thus indoor things were done until, at 1pm, it seemed like a reasonable time to wander the 1km down the road to see if the Auberge was serving a Menu del Dia today. There are three bars in the town, the nearest only about 150m away, but they only serve pintxos.

A wide concrete path/narrow lane alongside the dry riverbed (remember this is limestone country; there is an underground river too, and the above ground one only flows when it's really wet) delivered us to the door of the auberge and at first glance it didn't look promising. Two cars in the car park, two people inside - one behind the bar and one propping it up. Some poorly-acted programme was blaring out of the TV in the corner.

Language was an issue, as the lady running the place spoke less English than we speak Spanish, but we communicated that we wanted to eat and after a while she called us down to the dining room - an intimate place with just four tables. Naturally, at 1.30pm, we were the only people in there. She put the TV on for us, but turned away from the dodgy acting and to the news channel which, for the entire time we were there, focused on the story of the Catalan leader having sought political assylum in Belgium - a story that still hasn't been mentioned on the BBC news App.

Making our meal choices was an exercise in random selection with a bit of giggling thrown in, as there was no written menu. We did manage to grasp that two of the options for the starter were asparagus and pasta, so we went for one of each of those. The other proved to be a lentil soup, which I would have preferred to the asparagus, but I didn't learn that until other people started arriving an hour later.

Main courses were more of a stab in the dark. Mick found himself with a plate completely covered with thinly cut fried steak with a few chips on top. I found myself with ... well, I'm not quite sure! I could identify the chips and the peppers, but had no idea what was inside the peppers. After posting this photo on Facebook...

...a friend googled and suggested they were stuffed with cod puree. They didn't strike me as fishy, but who knows?

For me desert was easy. I don't think I've ever had a meal in Spain where 'flan' wasn't an option (and it happens to be my favourite) and even I could work out that 'flan café' was coffee flavoured. Mick went for the option that she seemed to be recommending which transpired to be a rolled sponge containing a thick custard and soaked in some fruit syrup. Both were lovely.

Along with all of that came a basket of bread, a litre of bottled still water, a half litre of fizzy water and a litre of wine. The price? €9 per head.

It wasn't the best quality food we've eaten, but I've had worse meals in the UK, with only a fraction of the quantity, for over three times the price.

With incredible luck, the rain had held off as we had walked to our lunch. It poured over lunch, then held off again as we walked back.

That's a lot of words to say 'we went out for lunch', but there's nowt else for me to talk about today. The forecast is better for tomorrow!

I'll finish with a photo I forgot to post yesterday. You remember that house I mentioned a couple of days ago that Mick was eyeing up? This one:


We walked around the back of it yesterday and it's even more impressive on the rear elevation:

Sunday 29 October - Lanestosa

Where's Bertie? He's still in the Aire at Lanestosa, where he has been joined this afternoon by two more British vans.
Weather: Overcast, becoming a bit drizzly late in the afternoon.

I'm going to be lazy today and just refer you to the post I've written on our walking blog, as our visit to the top of a local hill has been the only notable activity. If I've done my code right, you'll be able to click on 'click here' below and it'll take you straight there.

Click here

If I've not done this right, then you'll need to copy and paste this into your address bar:
http://gayleybird.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/sunday-29-october-pena-el-moro-821m.html?m=1

Saturday 28 October - Laredo and Lanestosa

Where's Bertie? He's in a municipal Aire in the village of Lanestosa. It costs €8 to obtain a card which gives you 24hrs of electric and 10 minutes of hot shower (toilet and washing up sinks are free). It is requested that visitors purchase at least one card if they are staying here, which I read to mean you could stay two days and just buy one card if you didn't want the services. Exact location: 43.21732, -3.43858.
Weather: Mainly overcast, with a couple of light showers but quite a few sunny intervals.

As always seems to be the case in Spain (and, in fact, in most European places we've been, outside of the UK), people were out in force taking their morning exercise along the promenade in Laredo as I set out for a joggette just after first light. The cleaners were out too, including the men pushing their rubbish trolleys and brandishing witches' brooms to sweep up the leaves, and a road sweeper driving around clearing leaves off the roads. It is, of course, late October, so the leaves continue falling whilst their predecessors are cleared, but the sweepers (manual and mechanical) will continue to battle them on a daily basis (except for Sunday, I presume).

Mick tag-teamed me in the running stakes, and as 'first light' is coming late just now (an hour earlier from tomorrow, mind), it was a late breakfast by the time he got back.

Mick's arm is now better; today his hip was troubling him, so I left him sitting resting it as I trotted off to town to avail myself of Santander's wifi to ensure we have a continued supply of crosswords. Alas, having walked the ten minutes into town, I discovered that Santander didn't have their wifi turned on, and as I neither speak the right language nor bank with Santander, I wasn't in a position to complain. It wasn't a wasted trip: I found some even better free wifi just around the corner.

I had observed on arrival in Laredo that the cashier in Lidl had spoken to me in Spanish, not Basque, and it was only when we popped by there again today and the same happened that I looked around and realised that all of the signs within view were monolingual. We had left the Basque Country at some point since Bilbao.

We didn't stay out of it for long; our journey inland to Lanestosa brought us back into the region.

Arriving at the Aire here at approaching 1pm, I set about preparing a combined lunch and elevenses, whilst Mick went straight out to the Tourist Office, as I could find no information online as to its opening hours, but knew it was open right then, as we had just driven past. The signage in the Aire said that we could buy the cards required to operate the electricity and showers here from any business in town, but it seemed that the place most likely to speak English was the Tourist Office. So they did, and Mick came back not only with two cards (we thought we would start with two nights here; we may stay longer) but also a good amount of information from the helpful assistant there.

Despite having good information about the walking routes nearby, we are saving them for another day, although in the knowledge that the forecast for the next two days is a little damp (as it was today, but it's not been bad, actually). The only activity this afternoon was a look around the village. It's medieval, I believe, and except for the main road, comprises narrow streets cobbled in large pebbles - not great for walking on and noisy for driving. We're certainly glad that we followed our noses rather than the SatNav's directions when we arrived and thus Bertie only had to negotiate one small section of narrow cobbledness!


It's the time of year when the trees get pollarded, allowing you to see how their branches have been spliced together over the years

Mick was rather taken with this abandoned grand house. With the structural issues it is exhibiting at roof level, by lack of maintenance, it is sadly likely that restoring it will now be prohibitively expensive and thus it will just fall further and further into disrepair.

Friday 27 October - Laredo

Where's Bertie? He's still in the same dead-end road/car park as yesterday, by the beach at Laredo.
Weather: Mainly overcast but with a few sunny spells.

At a glance Laredo doesn't look like it offers much opportunity for walking beyond the beach and the adjacent promenade, but even so I did a quick search in wikiloc.com and was surprised to find that there was a short circular route that visited the hill behind the old town.

We had been unaware of the existence of the old town when we ventured in that direction yesterday, only learning of it when I discovered that Laredo gets a small mention in our guidebook.

So, after taking sequential runs along the promenade this morning (Mick's was delayed as he must have slept with his arm in an odd position last night, leaving him in lots of pain when he moved or straightened it this morning), we set out early in the afternoon to take a look at the recommended walking route.

The arrow I've marked on this photo points at the prominence where we ended up...

...although, inexplicably, the advertised route turned back towards the town just 300m before the top. We hadn't expended all that energy in walking up a hill to omit visiting the high point, so we made the detour, which afforded good views both back down to the town and beach...

...and, in the other direction, along the rugged coast.


Coming back through the town, I happened to spot the name 'Santander' (as in the bank) above the door of an old-looking building and it occurred to me that, as Santander offers free wifi in the UK, it might be worth checking here. Wifi there was, and it even extended to a nearby bench, so a very late lunch (I had taken sandwiches with us, but we'd not paused to eat them) was had whilst I downloaded some podcasts. We are listening to a series on the History of Rome over tea each evening and, carelessly, I'd allowed us to run out of episodes a couple of days ago.

We were debating this evening whether to move on tomorrow or to stay another night. The forecast being poor for the weekend and Monday led to points for and against both options, however, the final deciding factor is that our quest to find a functioning toilet in town, where we can empty Bertie's cassette, has been unsuccessful (plenty of toilets; none of them working - even the one with a green light on saying it is), which means we are going to have to move on.

Friday 26 October - Laredo

Where's Bertie? I'm not sure whether I'd class his location as a car park or roadside. He's in a dead-end, non-residential side street in the town of Laredo that is entirely set out for car parking (exact location: 43.4149, -3.42815).
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine.

I wondered whether the crashing of waves so close to Bertie would disturb us last night, but on the contrary, an excellent night's kip was had all around.

Suitably refreshed, I leapt out of bed this morning (well, leapt after Mick had got up and made me a cup of tea and I had drunk it!) and took myself out for a run. It was all uphill on the outbound leg, with the bonus of being all downhill on the way back.

The air clarity was much better this morning:


Mick went out as I came back (although he ended up running a different road, due to a German Shepherd dog obstructing one of the roads I'd taken) and after showers and a late breakfast, it was time to move on.

We probably would have simply gone shopping then headed inland to the next Aire we've selected. However, the car park of the Lidl we visited wasn't suitable for staying for elevenses, and I was hungry (unsurprising, as it was gone noon; our trolley of goods did have a bit of a 'shopping when hungry' look about it). So, we drove just five minutes away, to this spot by the beach.

Whilst I put the kettle on, Mick walked the 50m to the beach and returned with the words 'How long can we stay here'? It is rather pleasant on a sunny day, and the beach is truly vast (5km long, apparently):


A walk was taken along the beachside promenade into town this afternoon, returning by paddling along the edge of the water.


Little Mick had a little rest on the way back

The two other motorhomes who have been here during the day have gone now, so as I type we have this entire street/car park to ourselves - quite a contrast to yesterday's heaving car park.

Wednesday 25 October - Bilbao and Islares

Where's Bertie? He's in a surfers' car park about four yards away from the edge of a low sea cliff, looking out across a bay (exact location: 43.40466, -3.31308).
Weather: More wall-to-wall sunshine, but very poor air clarity.

About every three weeks when we're on the road, the quantity of laundry in Bertie's wardrobe starts to exceed the capacity of the laundry bag. Being in a city with plenty of laundrettes dotted around the place, our main focus this morning was on the mundane task of reducing the laundry pile back down to zero.


Another ride on the funicular railway preceeded a one minute walk to the nearest laundrette, which I spotted despite the best efforts of some scaffolding to hide it. Once inside, at first glance, I was slightly horrified by the prices: €5 for a small washer, €10 for a big one, and €3 for just 15 minutes of drying. It was only when I noticed that the big machine was 20kg, and the small one 10kg (usually it's 8kg and 5kg), that I realised that we could cram all of our stuff into the smaller (or almost all; the towels did have to get omitted). That made the price far more reasonable, and it got even better when it turned out that the driers were so efficient that everything was dry in 15 minutes. Bargain!

One more errand to a cash point, and we were headed back up the hill for the last time. Lunch followed hot on the heals of elevenses, then that was us done with Bilbao. Westwards we went.

The car park for which we were aiming was fairly packed when we arrived, and has remained so ever since, with every space being taken within moments of being vacated by the previous vehicle. We must have struck lucky to get a prime spot overlooking the water.


The view from in front of Bertie. See all the bodies in the water? We counted 30 at one point - and the surf really isn't that good here.

A wider view of the bay

Whilst it is a lovely spot, there's limited ability to walk anywhere from here, and thus not much to do but be lazy. As we had got a little bit of exercise in this morning, we opted to stay for the rest of the day and enjoy watching the surfers and admiring the view, but there's nothing to hold us here any longer, so, after a good spell of staying at least 2 nights in each place, we will move on in the morning.

Brits abroad?


The harbour, behind Bertie.

Tuesday 24 October - Bilbao

Where's Bertie? He remains perched on the hill to the east of Bilbao.
Weather: Sunny and warm by midday.

The funicular railway was a very efficient way to drop 750m or so down into Bilbao this morning. Contrary to what I said yesterday, the journey into town only takes 3 minutes, and the cost of 95 cents per person doesn't break the bank.

We had no real plan as to how we were going to go about our tour of the city, but a look at the exterior of the Guggenheim Museum seemed like a good place to start - after all, Mick (who hadn't seen photos of it) exclaimed on it when he saw it at a distance from the viewpoint yesterday.

To get there we first crossed the river via a glass-floored footbridge, although it seems that the glass floor proved too dangerous in wet weather, so it is now covered with a carpet.

A bimble along the river and the Guggenheim was before us. What an incredible building! This shot does not do it justice:

Behind the museum is a dog. A very large dog, made up of flowers. This is a photo of the photo shown alongside it:

Those flowers get completely removed and replanted twice a year. In May it gets planted with summer varieties, in October it gets switched to winter varieties. It is currently October, and a team of workmen were just putting the finishing touches to the scaffolding that they will use for the next 9 days (at least; more if the soil needs replacing) whilst they go about the gardening. Hence, this is all we saw:


From there we headed across to the 'old town', noticing on our way that we were surrounded by Brits. Incredible numbers of Brits. We don't go to very many places that are on the tourist trail for our fellow countrymen (and women, not to mention children), but once we thought about it we realised that Bilbao is on both cruise and ferry routes from the UK. Indeed, we saw a whole fleet of tour buses dropping off cruise passengers.

One of the most noticeable things about those Brits was how many were shivering away, having dressed in shorts and t-shirts only to find the temperature in the shade of the narrow streets to be just 12 degrees. Even we (in long trousers, jumpers and, in my case, a jacket) had to dive into a department store at one point for a bit of a warm up. Happily, whilst we were sitting in a sunny riverside spot for elevenses, it warmed up to a balmy 23 degrees, and even the shorts and t-shirt brigade must have been comfortable for the rest of the day.

We'd intended to have lunch in the old town. The only problem was that the restaurant we had selected was deserted - as was every establishment that wasn't a pintxos bar. Half past noon is far too early for a local to be thinking about lunch. Not wanting to sit on our lonesomes in a restaurant, but too hungry to wait until the locals started feeling peckish, off we trotted to the market, where a quick round of pintxos at one of the bars there filled a hole.

I failed to take a photo of the lunch I finally had. It was a squid stew, cooked in its ink, and thus was a black sludge, filled with small whole squid. Its lack of visual appeal was not reflected in its taste; it was delicious.

As we wandered back to the funicular station to bring us back up the hill (we shared a compartment with some Brits who kept us amused as we earwigged on their obvious lack of understanding as to how a funicular railway works) we compared notes about what we thought about Bilbao. For me I appreciated that there is some good and interesting architecture (most notably the excellent Guggenheim building, but dozens of other much older buildings too), and the riverside is nice too, but otherwise I wasn't that taken with the place. Mick, on the other hand, rather liked it. It has definitely been worth coming here though.


Looking along the river

I should probably mention that we didn't go into the Guggenheim. We weren't convinced, just from what our guidebook said about it, that we would like it enough to warrant the entrance fee. It had been our intention instead to visit the Museo de Bellas Artes tomorrow, on the basis that it is free on a Wednesday. Alas, a bit of Googling told me that the free opening was altered this summer, so that it is now free every day from 6-8pm, except for Tuesday, when it is closed all day (how bizarre - it's usually Monday when all museums are closed in Spain). Had I looked yesterday, we possibly would have nipped down last evening, but having missed that opportunity, we probably won't stick around to go tomorrow night.

Monday 23 October - Urkiola and Bilbao

Where's Bertie? He's in a car park on a hill above Bilbao (exact location: 43.27494, -2.91918)
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine once the morning fog had burnt off.

What a contrast to yesterday! Admittedly, it didn't start fantastically, when we woke to fog, but I felt sure that it would burn off in time, so we tarried until 11, then set out to repeat (and extend) yesterday's walk.

It was still a bit foggy as we set out...

... but there were signs of brightness, so if it didn't burn off before we reached the top, we hoped to be treated to an inversion.

It wasn't long before we were in clear air, with this view being the first we saw:


With the best of both worlds, there was also an inversion over to one side of us...

...whilst in the direction we were heading, it was perfectly clear at all levels:

What a contrast to yesterday:

Same spot, 24 hours apart

When we reached the furthest point in yesterday's walk, rather than picking up the return track, we wandered up onto the striking limestone ridge and enjoyed elevenses in a lovely spot with cracking views:

The person in this shot is not Mick - he was sitting next to me as I took it

Not far away from us on the ridge was a small prominence with something marking its summit, so we thought we may as well nip up there and at least have visited one of the high points on the ridge.


The little rocket thing marking the top helpfully had the name plate telling me the name and altitude of the lump on which we were standing: Baskonia - 973m

After a short retracing of the steps, a slightly different route was taken to the track that was to return us to Bertie. It turns out that I was uncharitable towards that track in yesterday's rain; it was much nicer under today's perfect sky.

We could quite easily have enjoyed another day in the Natural Park, but with it not being a designated motorhome parking area, we felt we shouldn't stay more than 2 nights. Down to Durango we went for a top-up shop, then onwards to Bilbao.

Our choices in Bilbao were an Aire (€15) or the adjacent car park (free) on the west side of the city, or here (also free), on a hill on the east side. The only things I had against the options on the west side were the time and distance to get into the city. Here we are about 100m away from the funicular railway that for 95 cents each will whisk us down into the city in just 6 minutes. There's a cracking viewpoint up here, giving a panorama over the city and, as a bonus, it seems that the restaurant next to which we are parked is closed this week, so there (hopefully!) won't be too much coming and going late at night.

Sunday 22 October - Urkiola

Where's Bertie? His wheels have not turned. He is still in the car park at the religious Sanctuary in Urkiola.
Weather: Rain on and off all day, with just one hint of sunshine for about 30 seconds this afternoon.

We did have a quiet night last night. The last chime I heard of the church bells were at 10.45pm. The next I heard them was at 8 this morning. I'm pretty sure that's because they stopped overnight, not because I slept soundly, as they really are quite loud from where we are parked.

It took a while to summon the will to emerge from beneath the duvet this morning (it being cold enough last night to break the big winter duvet back out), but we made haste once I had looked at the latest weather forecast and seen that, contrary to yesterday's okay forecast, it was now predicted to rain for four hours from midday.

Alas, the rain came early, and thus in full waterproofs we walked up the nearest hill, soon finding ourselves in the cloud and completely robbed of the stunning views that we knew to be around us.


We didn't extend our walk onto the limestone ridge beyond, as it seemed a bit pointless in the conditions, but we did complete a 3.7 mile circuit with just over 1000' of ascent.


We dropped below the cloud as we reached the track that took us back to our start point.

Our good intentions to go out for another stroll this afternoon came to nought. With rain pattering on and off, we have been content to sit and do very little. Meanwhile, the car park around us filled up to its brim, then emptied again, and the bread seller that looked out of place in an almost-empty car park first thing this morning was doing a roaring trade by lunchtime.

That was in part due to hoards of people going out for a Sunday walk in spite of the weather, and in part due to a function/gathering going on at the refuge next to which we are parked. It's an odd place, being a big bare warehouse of a building, open to the public for picnicking/shelter purposes, with toilets (no locks - toilets well out of arms reach of the door!), a room with a row of sinks and a room with a row of barbecue stations under a big hood of a chimney. There are no chairs, but there are lots of bins. Today people came and set up big tables and cooked big pots of something over portable stoves. Later there was an incredible smell of barbecue, and when I wandered down to use the facilities it was fairly bustling in there.

It has not been warm at all today, but we opted not to head down to warmer temperatures, but rather to stay put, in the hope that tomorrow's forecast sunshine materialises, so that we can take another stab at today's walk and appreciate the surroundings better.

Saturday 21 October - Abadiño and Urkiola

Where's Bertie? He's in a car park next to a religious Sanctuary in Urkiola (exact location: 43.10012, -2.64213).
Weather: Showers throughout the day, but some good dry spells this afternoon and even a bit of blue sky.

We would happily have stayed longer in Elorrio, but having already overstayed our welcome, we made tracks this morning - including an extra circuit of the town when we discovered the road closed in our original direction of exit.

Our first stop was only 10km down the road, in the town of Abadiño. We'd not found anywhere satisfactory for a run in Elorrio, with the pavements interrupted by too many side roads, not to mention too many inclines for my liking. Abadiño, I'd read, had a cycle route, so that's to where we headed.

It was raining as we set out for a run, but dry as we finished, thus we enjoyed a few minutes of entertainment by wandering into the football ground across the road and watching a bit of a juniors match (under 10s, we guessed, and they were good).

With lunchtime fast approaching, we'd not yet had elevenses, and given the choice between having stale bread immediately, or driving for ten minutes to a Lidl and buying fresh croissant, we did the latter. Once the hunger pangs had been satisfied, we went back into the shop for the rest of the groceries we needed.

A decision point was then before us. Where to go next? To the coast? Straight to Bilbao? Or, a detour further inland to be in amongst the hills for the night?

Inland won, although I didn't know at the time quite how high we were going to climb. In fact, I still don't know how far we climbed, but Mick commented a few times on the tumbling MPG figure and the temperature was just 11 degrees when we got to our lofty destination.

Bertie is in the trees to the right of the middle of this shot

We're in a Natural Park here, and a recce around the car park told me there was a Visitor Centre just across the main road. 'Just across' turned out to be 0.5km away, involving a bit of a hill, but it was a helpful chap I met there, even though I caught him just as he was closing up for lunch. I came away with three walking route suggestions, but after yesterday's exertions and this morning's run, not to mention a sky that was tending towards heavy grey again, we found that our enthusiasm this afternoon only stretched to the 1.5km amble to the 'Three Crosses Viewpoint'...

...followed by a look around the Sanctuary next to which we are parked. As religious buildings go, it's rather modern and unremarkable, although I think Mick's verdict of 'It looks a bit like a power station' was a little harsh.


I think, as I type this, that we are now all alone in the car park. I'll not try to guess as to whether we'll have a quiet night, particularly as we are very close to the bell tower that may well chime the quarter hour all night.

Friday 20 October - Elorrio

Where's Bertie? He's still in the Aire at Elorrio, although we have moved along 4 spaces, as our previous slot was shaded in the middle of the day, keeping the sun off the solar panel.
Weather: Overcast start, gradually clearing to wall-to-wall sunshine.

As we looked across at the nearest rocky lump of a hill during yesterday's walk, I pondered out loud whether there would be a route up it. As we sat in the bar post-walk, a search of wikiloc.com confirmed there was. Moments later I had the route downloaded to the mapping software on my phone.

This morning we got up bright and early (or not so bright, as it was still dark as we breakfasted), with the intention of visiting the selected summit (Erdikoatxa, 1042m) and getting back early enough to move on. By that time we would have been here for slightly more than the 72 hours permitted in any one week.

For five miles we walked up hill, the first four being along a forest track, increasingly getting glimpses not only of our objective but of the hills around us. It was just a bit of a shame that the forecast blue skies hadn't materialised.

Still overcast as we approach our objective

The intention had been to visit the third lump on this ridge, but as we approached it looked very steep and rocky, and perhaps a bit more difficult than we were hankering after today. Suddenly the second summit looked more attractive.

It turned out that the second summit was small and somewhat 'airy', with a sheer drop to one side and a very sharp drop to the other. We paused only long enough to take some summit snaps and we were on our way back down when I realised that, with my concentration on holding on and not to trip over any of the rocks up there, I'd completely failed to look at the view!


Our return route was almost a retracing of steps, except that, a different (and not so easy) line was taken for the first mile.

By the time we paused for lunch, at the same spot, as we had taken elevenses on the way up, the cloud had finally cleared - and what views it gave:


It may have only been 2pm by the time we got back to Bertie, but we were quite content to be lazy for the rest of the day. It's been a while since we did a walk of any distance (this one was 10 miles) or with that much ascent (3100').

The one thing we failed to do during the rest of the day was to move on. This Aire has not even been half full whilst we have been here, and last night there were only two vans, so we decided that, as we are not putting anyone out, we would take a risk and stay an extra night. We will be on our way first thing tomorrow, although I fear that I'm going to have sore shins* and thus be scuppered for the run I'd wanted to do. We'll see...

^{(* Despite going up dozens and dozens of hills every year, if I have a break for even a few weeks, my shins complain loudly next time they're forced to walk down hill. Five miles of consistent down today was not to their liking).}

Thursday 19 October - Elorrio

Where's Bertie? Still at the Aire in Elorrio.
Weather? Glorious morning, with bits of high cloud gathering this afternoon. Warm.

The final shower of yesterday's wet spell passed through at around 7.30 this morning. By the time we got up it was a gloriously sunny day - perfect for a walk a bit longer than yesterday's.

It wasn't a spectacular walk, particularly as a bit over half of it was on roads (albeit tiny, quiet ones), but it was pleasant enough and we enjoyed views of the ruggedness of the nearby hills, and admired some typical Basque Country properties:


In a repetition of yesterday's post-walk activity (happily, without wet clothes this time around) tea/coffee was had at the bar in town, with me running back to Bertie whilst Mick ordered, so as to grab the Tablet to take advantage of the wifi to download some more newspapers.

Lunch, writing a catch-up post for the other blog (gayleybird.blogspot.com) and doing the daily newspaper puzzles took up a few hours, allowing the shops to close for, and reopen from, their afternoon break. Then we went on a shopping spree, back to the Aladin's cave we found yesterday, via a bit of loitering outside of our favourite bar for more wifi (I've been having trouble with Google Maps, which I use *a lot* when we're away, and needed to try again to fix it).

Aladin's cave provided us, at very reasonable prices, with a new frying pan (careless storage when we packed Bertie for the very first time did serious damage to the non-stick coating of the old one), a lid for it and a new flask (we have a collection of flasks in Bertie; our smallest was just fine when we used it on Sunday, but when I filled it yesterday the outer skin became very hot, telling me that the essential vacuum element of it was no more; it was a stainless steel flask and I'd not dropped or banged it, so who knows how that came to pass). I admired the yarns again...

We finished a day with a nice sunset silhouetting the pointy lump of rock to Bertie's starboard. I really ought to have taken the trouble to walk twenty metres along the path to place myself beyond the lamppost which dominates the shot!

Wednesday 18 October - Elorrio

Where's Bertie? He is unmoved, in the Municipal Aire in Elorrio.
Weather: Overcast all day, plenty of rain, cooling to just 17 degrees this afternoon.

The original plan for today was to do this walk:

Seeing the forecast for rain all day, I modified that plan to just walk the eastern side of the loop, like this...

...and that's what we set out to do at about 10.30 this morning.

After rain overnight, it had been dry for a few hours at that point. Alas, the moment we had locked Bertie's door behind us, it started to rain. We wavered, before deciding to go ahead anyway.

The views of the hills were rather marred compared to yesterday...

...but the route through the woods was pleasant...

...except for the bit where we walked past a sulphur spring:

That was just plain pongy.

By the time we came out of the woods, the rain was really coming down. That coincided with us meeting a road that would take us a direct route back into town. It wasn't a difficult decision to cut short, so that in the end all we did was the blue and red lines shown below, plus the little bits of the originally planned route that joins them:

It came in at just 2.5 miles.

Ordinarily, we would have made a beeline back to Bertie for coffee and coissant, but as this town has been so kind as to give us parking, a service point and a town audiotour, all for free, we paid a little back by stopping in at a bar for coffee. We stayed there long enough for my shorts to get almost dry, but timed our departure ill, stepping outside just as the rain really started coming down again.

A stop at a bakers for this enormous chcolate covered confection...

...didn't give any opportunity to dry out, so our legwear was soaked again by the time we had walked the three or four minutes back to the Aire. Maybe we should have used the waterproof overtrousers we had with us, but this morning it was perfectly warm enough to just get wet in shorts. It got cooler as the day went on.

I'll finish with a quick mention of a shop we visited during a late afternoon stroll around town (we had been cooped up in Bertie for hours and needed a leg-stretch): we found a gem of an Aladin's cave, selling the most enormous array of stock, from a huge range of frying pans (which is why we went in) to huge flesh coloured knickers to a whole aisle of knitting yarn. I took a particular interest in the latter; Mick put his foot down and insisted that I have enough.

Tuesday 17 October - Elorrio

Where's Bertie? He's in the municipal Aire at Elorrio. It's free to stay here and to use the service point, although the later requires a token from the tourist office or the police station. (Exact location: 43.12826, -2.54622)
Weather: Increasing cloud this afternoon, but still warm.

An early start was had this morning, mainly because the Aire at San Sebastián had been about full last night and we didn't want to find ourselves in a big queue for the service point before we left.

Our ploy worked, although it did land us in rush hour traffic instead. However, once out of town, all was plain sailing to Elorrio, which sits 80km away, and inland, from San Sebastián.

We had been lured here under semi false pretences, in that the tourist office advertises not just walking routes in the local hills, but also a 5km ex-railway line which is now a Via Verde, which we thought would be perfect for a running route. We failed to find it during our forays around town, and after some Googling, established that it actually starts from a town that's 3km from here.

All looking promising on the approach, with big lumps of rocky hills appearing before us.

Whilst we may have been partly lured by the promise of something that isn't here, we are still happy to have come, having had an excellent visit to the town this afternoon.

After an early lunch, we nipped out to the tourist office to pick up some information about walking routes in the area, intending to then return to Bertie to consider our options. Thinking we would be gone 20 minutes at most, we took neither water nor hats with us.

Two and a half hours later, we had:
- located (with some difficulty) the Tourist Office and established that, contrary to the hours stated on their website, it only opens at weekends at this time of year;
- during a detour to a public lavatory, stumbled across an information board that told us we could get an audioguide from the police station, located in the town hall;
- located (with some difficulty) the town hall, found an English speaker, obtained a map of the town, but discovered that the police station has moved;
- located (with no difficulty at all - the lady from the Town Hall escorted us) the police station and obtained the audiotour handsets plus a token for the motorhome service point; and
- completed the audiotour.

The town square. The Town Hall is the building with the arches.

Finding the start of the tour took us a few minutes of head-scratching, but once we had located it, it proved to be easy to follow.

Looking serious! Well, I was trying to listen attentively and take a photo at the same time.

One of the tiles inset into the pavement which imparted which number to press on the audio handset and also in which direction to go for the next point of interest

It may have been a touch too long, visiting a couple more palaces than necessary (this is a town stuffed full of historic palaces), but my opinion may have been swayed by how thirsty I was by the time we finished. Thirty one points of interest were visited in total, and the thing that made this tour so good (aside from being free) was that the English version of the narration had clearly been written by a fluent English speaker and was delivered by someone with an English accent*.

One of the streets in the town. Wouldn't want to try to take Bertie through there!

Without the tour, we would have wandered the town and found it to be pleasant and interesting; the tour took our visit to a whole different level.

Such was my thirst that as soon as we had visited the last point of interest, we hot-footed it back to the police station, handed over the handsets, and made our way back to Bertie for refreshment.

We popped into the basillica during our tour and found the biggest, and one of the most bling-y, altar pieces we have ever encountered (and we've been in a lot of churches and cathedrals). Look at the altar table for a sense of scale as to how vast this piece is.

We found the Aire as we had left it - with Bertie and two other vans who were already here when we arrived. There are 11 spaces on four tiers (two in the first tier, then two, five and two). We opted for a slot at one end of the bank of five, with the only other occupied slot in this tier being right at the other end. Perhaps predictably, the only two vans which have since arrived (British and French respectively) parked in between us, even though there are two completely empty tiers. Herding instinct? Or a subconscious belief that because vans were already parked in this bit, it must be the best spot?

(As an aside: this is attempt two at this post. I spent an age typing it then, in a moment of stupidity, accidentally deleted the whole thing. Doh!)


^^ (*I don't mean to sound ungrateful to those towns/tourist attractions who don't do their tours as spectacularly well as this town. I'm always grateful for any efforts to provide information in multiple languages, but it can be difficult to fathom what was meant when the translation has been done via Google Translate, and it can also be difficult to tune into the pronunciations of a person speaking English as their non-native language.)