Thursday, August 19, 2021

Bilbao, Day 1 of 2

Bike Route: Castro-Urdiales to Bilbao, 31 miles, 2300 feet of climb

Our new mapping strategy worked pretty well. We did have to hike our bikes down some stairs and across the beach on a boardwalk at Playa de la Arena, but otherwise the first half of our day was on a beautiful bikeway along the coast, and the last half of the day was on an excellent bike trail through the suburbs and city of Bilbao. It rained, mostly lightly, on and off all day, but we had our raincoats.

Our accommodations are a private en suite room in a huge apartment shared by our host Ima, who is a retired primary school teacher. She has a son who lives in Granada, and a daughter and a grandson age 11 who live in France. Ima speaks enough English for us to have small conversations with the help of Google Translate.

Ima recommended an excellent pintxo restaurant, Gure Toki, in Plaza Nuevo. We strolled over there around 7:30 and finished up with helados (ice cream) on the way back.

Right after this pretty stretch, we had to hike our bikes down steep, slippery steps to Playa de la Arena.

We shared the coastal trail with hikers on the Camino de Santiago.

I haven't stopped to take many photos of flowers, but they are everywhere and they are beautiful.

We love paved trails like this one. Easy grades, beautiful scenery. What more could you ask for?,,,

...Cows.