We awoke after having a pretty good sleep. We were sleeping without the tent just on the cement at the top of the football stadium bleachers. Little did we know we were setting ourselves up for trouble this morning. We packed up and prepared to leave, but when we tried to exit, saw that the door was locked and needed a key to he unlocked. Fortunately we only had to wait a few minutes, until 8am, when an angry looking lady drove up on the other side of the gate and demanded in Spanish how we were there, what time we entered, where we slept, etc. Two more men arrived, one even more angry than the lady, and one who just seemed to grin at the situation and told us we could leave.
So we set off towards Bilbao. Morning coffee we stopped in a small village (coffee with milk and a chocolate croissant was €2.60). We’ve noticed that the Spanish version of pain au chocolat generally has a generous amount of chocolate spread inside, while the French version only has two thin sticks of hard chocolate. Also I’ve tried to order a “noisette” in Spain amd they don’t understand.
The other exciting event was when Viki ran a red light and a police car right behind pulled us over. He was angry and demanded why she’d ran it. When we apologized he said he was going to write us a ticket, but ended up letting us get off with a warning when I couldn’t find Viki’s passport.
The road to Bilbao was fast. Smooth pavement, slightly downhill, no headwind. We arrived in Bilbao at 12:30 and first went to decathlon to get chain lube (my chain has started to show a slight bit of orange rust). We then went the 7km out of town to our hotel, Hotel Puerta de Bilbao (€73/night without breakfast). We checked in, were brought a bottle of champagne and chocolates for our honeymoon, and napped, cleaned our clothes, and lounged by the pool.
At a rather Spanish hour of 8:30pm we departed for dinner, where we had pintxos at Mendi Taberna and Elkana Barakaldo. Both seemed super authentic and old school, with patrons saying they don’t see many tourists around these parts (we’re in a suburb outside of Bilbao). Pintxos were €1.80 each (compared to €2.50 in San Sebastian) and a glass of wine was €1.60 (though I didn’t drink, having to get through the whole bottle of hotel cava myself). Tomorrow we have an entire day of rest, of which we’re now planning to have every three days for the rest of our trip!
