Saturday-Sunday, August 21-22, 2021

Lekeitio

Bike Route August 21: Bilbao to Lekeitio, 34 miles. 2800 feet of climb

We had quite a few highway miles Saturday, with heavy weekend traffic in the afternoon. The climbs were easier because they were on paved roads at smaller grades (average 5-7 percent), but it was not relaxing on the busier stretches. Still, the scenery was gorgeous and so was the weather.

We stopped for a second breakfast in Guernica, in a little cafe near a park on the Camino de Santiago. We also visited the Tree of Guernica and the Assembly House, before moving on up and down and around a mountain to Lekeitio.

We are here for two nights, renting a room in an apartment with our host, Juan, his partner, Edgar, and Edgar's cousin Claudia. Lekeitio is a little town with three beaches, and it is crammed with visitors from Bilbao over the weekend. We managed to get reservations at a restaurant on the harbor for dinner at 7:30 Saturday night, and had a pleasant evening stroll around the port.

Sunday we slept in late, then spent several hours planning our route and accommodations for the next few weeks. We are cycling in a circle back to Santander, and want to go from Santander to Girona (about 525 miles) on September 13. One option is by train (one train from Santander to Madrid's Campoamor station, transfer to Madrid's Atocha station, and a second train to Girona). The only other option is to rent a car and drive. The two options cost about the same. We chose the train, even though the transfer in Madrid will be tough with the bikes; we hired a van to transfer us between stations, and hope that we can get it all accomplished in the hour and 27 minutes allowed between trains.

After lunch we walked around the town again, ate tapas for a late lunch / early dinner, and went to bed early.

This sculpture of a Camino de Santiago pilgrim sat at the entrance to the park near our lunch stop in Guernica.

Since the 14th century, representatives of the Basque territories have met at the Tree of Guernica and nearby Assembly House. The original oak tree lived for 450 years. This replacement was planted in the 1742 and died in 1892. The fifth and newest tree was planted in 2015.

We stopped several times to enjoy the scenery on our journey to Lekeitio.

The beaches in Lekeitio were crowded until it started to grow dark around 8:30.

The plaza quieted down a little around 7:00, when the restaurants began to switch over from pintxos to dinner mode. 

Kids around ages 10 to 14 were jumping off the end of the peer. Some jumped from the lower level, but most braved the upper level--about a 25 foot drop.