Rioja Ramblings and Bilbao Braggings
La Rioja and Bilbao
April 13 –
30
From Madrid the plan was to head North to the Basque region. Since we’d been city-hopping a bit, we decided to break the trip up with a few days in a small town in the wine region of La Rioja. From there we’d head to our beachside base just outside Bilbao – home of the famous Guggenheim Museum (and the perhaps less-well-known outside Spain, Bilbao Basket).
Road Trip!
Simba the Peugeot
is a typical European car – small and compact, easy to get through tiny
cobblestone streets and into ridiculously small parking spots. What he is not,
is a car made to take four adults, sports equipment and luggage on a two-week
holiday. Al didn’t let this get in the way of making it happen.
Michelle to Dene: So what would you like to do while we’re in Madrid?
Dene: Oh,
some sightseeing, maybe sit at a sidewalk café and enjoy a pastry while
people-watching.
Al: How
about we go to the local car parts store and buy some roof racks??
Three hours
later…
…And then foolishly, we decided we’d take them off again until we needed them. Another two hours to get them back on (consisting of 115 minutes of trying to put them on wrong, and 5 minutes of putting them on right).
NOW Let's go...
Of Mountains and Grapes
We didn’t have grand plans for our visit to this part of the country. We figured some family time playing golf and tennis, lounging around in the backyard, board games at night, maybe a bit of wine tasting if it worked out. Wow, did we under-estimate this region. We could have stayed for a lot longer than the few days we had. It helped that the warm weather arrived and we were basking in sunshine.
The region of La Rioja is simply stunning, with the Ebro River winding its way along the wide valley between two mountain ranges. Picturesque villages, rolling fields and vineyards as far as the eye can see. Yep, we’re in Mediterranean Europe.
One of the boxes on Michelle’s list for the Spain trip was some walking / hiking in the countryside and mountains. With the Spanish love of walking and hiking there were countless choices from a Via Verde (old railway route) through the fields of the valley, to taking part of a pilgrims’ way (the Camino Frances comes from France and through the La Rioja region), walking town to town or venturing up into the mountains. We managed to do a bit of it all but only just scratched the surface.
Even better, the hike finished at a winery
Our second
walk was a little more ambitious 11km loop in the mountains. La Rioja is
bounded by the Sierra de Cantabria in the north (Atlantic coastal side) and the
Sierra de la Demanda in the south. As you might imagine from the names, the
Southern ones are higher. We opted to walk in the Northern range.
Dene had it all sorted with a trail marked out on his phone app. We set off full of energy and were drinking in the scenery and trying to figure out the greeting that passing fellow-hikers were saying. Now that we’re in Basque Country, we have a third opportunity to not speak the local language. They were either saying ‘Bai’ or ‘A-bye’ or maybe ‘Oh boy, another tourist’.
Anyway, whatever they were saying, it distracted us enough that we missed our trail turnoff. What we hadn’t factored in was that the hillside is scattered with so many trails it’s easy to miss the turns. Not to worry, Dene found us a new trail that would mean no backtracking – we’d simply join our original trail further up. The operative word here being ‘up’ – as in, straight up. The hitherto pleasant walk in the woods became a ‘where are my climbing ropes’ slog up the side of a cliff face, finally emerging back onto the main path. No doubt the site of our wheezing red faces startled the mother and daughter out for their stroll. ‘Where did you come from, and why?? Bai.’ We were eventually rewarded with an incredible view over the mountain range and the entire valley.
Picture a photo looking down the trail at Kerry / Michelle - at this point of 1km straight up not surprisingly all signs of any local hikers had evaporated.
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| Back to flat ground along a Via Verde was a short stroll from our village to the next town for lunch. |
While Dene, Kerry and Michelle were out hiking mountains, Al was nursing a sore foot and taking on the important role of finding a winery for post-walk refuelling. We wandered down from the mountain trail to find Al basking in the afternoon sun, in a blissful scene with families frolicking in the park, open fire barbeques and a local patio bar with – apparently – the best tortillas in Spain. (Spanish tortillas are more like what we’d call a potato and cheese quiche/gratin, served by the slice and very popular as a mid-morning snack). Homemade, fresh from the oven, the warm cheese spilling out over the steaming potatoes… We’re going to have to take Al’s word on how good they were, because by the time the rest of us got there, they were sold out for the day. The owner was very eager for us to return the next day: ‘Call tomorrow and let me know how many serves you’d like’. Alas, it was not to be. Al continues to remind us of how good it was and how he won’t bother having any more tortillas as they simply won’t measure up….
In between enjoying the tortilla and researching wineries, Al also went and found another aqueduct (continuing his mission to visit every aqueduct in Europe before he dies) as well as a curious necropolis apparently dating from the 10th century, at the edge of a farmer’s field. Body-shaped holes cut out from the rock to store… bodies? For burial? Burning? Google has not yielded any further wisdom.
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| Yet another random aqueduct... as you do. |
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| Speaking of random... |
The reward for our labours of the day was a visit to the nearby López de Haro winery. Despite not having pre-booked, the lovely bilbaína (Bilbao native) host was able to accommodate us on the tour. She kept us entertained over the entire tour, seamlessly switching between English for us and Spanish for the others. (She still had at least two other languages in her toolbelt, of course – French and Basque. It wouldn’t surprise us if she had a few others as well). She clearly revelled in her job, and showed remarkable restraint in limiting the tour to just two (!!) hours.
Easter parades (Santa Semana)
Easter week was coming to a climax so no surprise we stumbled on yet another Easter procession. This one complete with several people dragging 6ft wooden crosses up the road.
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And, well... these guys.
Golf and games
Lost in Translation: Apparently “12:30” and “2:30” are easily confused when you speak Spanish at the level of an infant. Luckily they were able to find another tee-time for us after we missed our 12:30 slot…
In between all that we did manage to fit in a few of the other things we’d originally planned, including some Spanish Parcheesi (with a cool new rule to move ahead 20 places when you ‘capture’ another player, and several spirited conversations on interpretations of the blockade rule in different hemispheres), and of course wine ‘tasting’ whenever and wherever possible.
Bilbao/ Bilbo / Bizkaia
Alas, it was time to wave goodbye to La Rioja and head to the beach. As we drove over the coastal mountains, the landscape suddenly changed from rocky, Mediterranean warmth to a lush green scene that looked more like northern European alpine scenery. Houses with rooves designed for serious snowfall, steep green fields, sheep and cows clinging to the hillsides. And the reason for all this greenery was immediately clear. Apparently the Aussies had only been able to pack 10 days of sunshine for their two week trip.
We arrived in our beachside town of Plentzia with its large crescent beach, inlet to a marina and river scattered with restaurants and bars. What we hadn’t factored in was that this was Atlantic beachside – waves crashing in, rain and wind lashing the coast, grey skies. It reminded Dene and Michelle of summer holidays in Albany on the south coast of Western Australia (ie: wet and cold, freezing swimming lessons). This is no longer Mediterranean Europe!
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| I guess we didn't take any photos on the wet windy days. And there were a few nice days sprinkled in. |
The landscape wasn’t the only thing to change. We’re in Basque country now, where everything is written in a font that looks remarkably like Asterix and Obelix and the letters X and Q appear way more often than our English-speaking tongues can fathom. While in most of Spain a simple ‘Hola!’ works as a greeting, here its Kaixo (Kai-sho).
Guggenheim
Museum
The big draw for Bilbao – really, what transformed the city from a rather dreary industrial town to a world-class tourist destination – is of course the Guggenheim Museum. The building is designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and is a wonder of stainless steel and anthropomorphic curves. (That's Feathers in front of a shamelessly lifted picture of the museum from their website). We peeked up at it from under our umbrella - Dene and Kerry’s magical charms seem to have worn off weather-wise.
Inside, the permanent collections don’t really compare to some of the other museums we’ve seen (but the building!) but luckily, there was a super cool temporary exhibition on the role of art and design in the history and development of the automobile. They had some pretty amazing cars on show including many one-of-a or just-a-few-of-a-kinds. We spent a couple of hours wandering and ogling the machines on display.
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| One of only four made, this Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic is... pricey. |
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| Behind Brian's older brother is the actual Aston Martin from the James Bond movies. They even had a loop from one of the movies playing in the background, to make sure you knew! :-D |
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| Bilbao is so much more than just the museum, too! |
Padel-mania
Along with our golf clubs we’ve also brought tennis and pickleball rackets to Spain. Pickleball doesn’t seem that popular but another tennis-related sport is everywhere - Padel. Kerry is an avid tennis player and tells us that Padel is taking off in Perth so she was keen to give it a go. And give it a go we did, a couple of times. Padel is somewhere in between tennis and squash (and maybe cage fighting?). You’re surrounded by fences and glass walls, which are all ‘in play’ – though the subtleties of how that rule works in practice escaped us the first time we played. We had a great time though, no doubt to the consternation of the courts around us. When we got home that night and actually read the rules, we realized we’d missed a couple of pretty key concepts which, the second time we played, pretty much fundamentally changed the game. Never mind, still really fun. We resisted buying rackets here because… we already have sooo much sporting equipment with us it’s getting a little ridiculous.
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| A common refrain - a Jai Alai court with some kids hitting tennis balls against the wall. I wanna see the real thing!! |
(Also, for those of you in snowy climes - you may want to check out these Jai Alai snow-scoops, which can throw snowballs 150 feet!!
Getafix
Since this part of the world has a bit of a reputation for great food, we knew we needed to be on the constant lookout. Luckily we had the inside track from a local (a friend of Al’s uncle Roy); they are part-time residents of Bilbao and gave us a comprehensive list of places we should try. And the list did not disappoint! We had the best meal we’ve had so far in Spain at a gem of a restaurant in Bilbao called ‘Ad Hoc Cascanueces’ (Nutcracker). Another recommendation for pintxos (you can’t visit Basque Country without having pintxos) in the central square of Bilbao was magnifico. And a day trip out to the nearby fishing village of Getaria provided a spectacular mountain drive followed by a great seafood meal.
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| Getaria - like Icebergs in Sydney! |
Speaking of food, somewhat randomly we discovered that there was an award-winning restaurant in our own backyard in Plentzia. We managed to snag a reservation for Saturday lunch - sadly Dene and Kerry were already on their way home by then – we’d dropped them at Bilbao station for a train to Madrid, followed by a 200-hour flight back to Oz.
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| Octopus lollipops in a ceramic octopus arm - LOL! |
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| 'A fake strawberry', both the menu and the server were insistent on pointing out. Have others before us thought that was a real strawberry?? |
Bilbao Basket
You had to persevere all the way to the end to find out more about Bilbao Basket. Well done! The Basket is, of course, Bilbao’s basketball team in the Spanish Basketball League. Spaniards are pretty passionate about their sport, and basketball ranks reasonably high in their list of faves. I mean, it’s no football, but still – pretty popular. We’d seen that the Basket had managed to knock off Réal Madrid (yes, that Réal Madrid) a couple of weeks back, so when we saw that they had a home game against…somebody… we thought, why not? As an added bonus, tickets to the Basket are a little cheaper than a Toronto Raptors game… like, 10-15 times cheaper. Another reminder of how much cheaper things tend to be here (I'm talking to you, 3€ bottles of wine!)
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| Down in front |
As luck would have it, the game went down to the wire, with our beloved Basket coming through in the dying seconds to hold on to a thrilling one point victory. Vamos!!
And with that, our time in Bilbao drew to a close. Next stop the Pyrenees, in an even smaller town, for some (more) hiking, tennis, golf and more!