Basque Country, Biscay and San Sebastián

After leaving the tedious coast road journey speeded up now of course and we completed the final thirty kilometres of the journey in less than half an hour.

As we approached the city I was struck by the fact that it was much bigger than I had been expecting and fairly soon it was much busier than I had imagined as well.  As we followed signs to the centre we joined a queue of crawling traffic with snarling engines, red hot clutch plates and frustrated drivers and we made slow progress towards our destination.  This seemed strange, we knew it was Mother’s day and this was making everywhere busier than normal but we couldn’t understand how this could have produced so much congestion.

As we nudged our way slowly through the obstructions the car parks all showed full signs and police were moving cars along and we circled the city centre twice looking for a parking spot.  I was all for giving up and finding somewhere else to go and I was regretting the decision to drive east this morning when perhaps we should have stayed in Cantabria when we finally found an underground car park with a few remaining vacant spaces and after nearly three hours of driving finally stopped the car.

We were unsure of our position and we were ready for refreshment so we walked around the cathedral square looking for somewhere suitable but almost everywhere was crowded and boisterous and I began to detect a lot of Irish accents in the bars.

Eventually we found a bar with some empty seats and went inside.  The bar was a sea of red shirts and I had to jostle myself into position by pushing through the scarlet rugby tops.  Now there were French voices alongside the Irish accents and the penny began to drop – somewhere there must be a sporting event and my enquiries revealed that not only was the place busy because of Mother’s Day this was also Rugby Football Heineken Cup semi-final day and Biarritz from France were taking on Munster from Ireland right here in San Sebastián.  This was not turning out to be a very well planned day at all!

I still wasn’t quite sure why a Biarritz home fixture was being played in San Sebastián in Northern Spain but I learned later that Biarritz consider themselves to be the Rugby Union representatives of the wider Basque community so often play games in Spain especially for important fixtures when they need a bigger stadium than they have available in France. Aha, a commercial consideration as well!

Biarritz Rugby Shirt in Basque Colours

It was quarter to three and the bar remained packed but having established that kick off was at three-fifteen we were confident that it would soon begin to clear out but at three o’clock it remained just as lively and at five past and at ten past and soon we began to realise that a lot of people hadn’t actually got tickets to the match itself at all and had just visited San Sebastián to be close to the event and to savour the atmosphere.

After a drink we abandoned the noisy bar and the throng of scarlet shirts (both sides play in red!) and went outside to see the city.  We made our way to the seafront through streets of tall well maintained buildings with balconies with iron railings and not a washing line or a satellite dish in sight because this is a wealthy resort town with the highest property values in Spain, which is especially popular with holidaymakers from France.  This probably helped when San Sebastián was named European Capital of Culture for 2016!

There weren’t many holidaymakers today because it was grey and cold with a sharp wind ripping in from the Atlantic and I really could have done with a hat and scarf.  We walked along the beach-front board-walk lined with stylish and expensive hotels, street art, gardens and fountains.  The beach was deserted today but it was easy to imagine just how busy this golden crescent of sand might be during the summer because this is the busiest and the most popular of all seaside resorts on the north coast of Spain.

It was too cold to loiter so we walked briskly across the beach and through the old town back to the car and then fearful of getting caught in traffic again at the end of the Rugby match left San Sebastián with the intention of finding somewhere to eat.

We had somewhere in mind but I took the wrong turn and went west instead of east and soon we were too far out of town to think about turning back so we carried on.  Leaving the motorway we headed for the coast and drove through a couple of unremarkable places before we arrived at the charming town of Guetaria where, next to fishing trawlers in the harbour there were some promising looking restaurants.  Sadly they had closed at three o’clock but there were some pinchos on the bar so we choose some of these and then to our surprise the sun put in its first appearance of the day and we were able to sit outside with a final cerveza before leaving and driving back to Bilbao and the airport.

Basque Country, Artziniega and Balmaseda

It was raining when we woke and this shouldn’t really have surprised us because this part of Northern Spain is one of the wettest places in Europe with an average of  one hundred and eighty-one days in a year when it rains.  This compares with one hundred and fifty-two days in London and only sixty in Seville in the south of the peninsula.

Cantabria is part of Green Spain, the name given to the strip of land between the Bay of Biscay and the Cantabrian Mountains and it is so called because it has particularly lush vegetation, due to a wet and moderate oceanic climate that is strongly influenced by Atlantic weather systems that get trapped by the mountains and turn to rain.  It is a place of complete contrast to the dustiest and driest parts of Spain in the arid South-East where most Northern European visitors head for the beaches and the sun-loungers of the concrete and tarmac strip.

While Northern Europe goes to the South, Northern Spain by contrast is a popular holiday choice with Spanish people living in the south and the central cities of the country because they like to holiday in the north to escape the oppressive heat and enjoy the famous seafood.  In August alone, eight million Spaniards travel north from cities like Madrid and Valencia to the more temperate climate of Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria with its green scenery and spectacular beaches.  The climate though is changeable and the region is often referred to in Spain as the wet or rainy region.

After breakfast we borrowed umbrellas from the hotel lobby and set off  in the car and our intended destination this time was the Basque capital city of Vitoria-Gasteiz.  We drove east along the Autovia and soon passed out of Cantabria and into Euskadi and as we did so the weather took a turn for the worst and it started to rain quite hard.

The route took us back around the suburbs of Bilbao and through large matchstick high rise housing estates.  The road dipped and weaved between the buildings and their individual accommodations each with a tiny balcony, some with flower pots, some dripping with colourful washing and all with satellite dishes and television aerials.  It really wasn’t very attractive at all and we were pleased when the motorway split in two and we started to head south and away from the city.

What we weren’t pleased about however was the weather because as we headed into the mountains it continued to deteriorate as stormy weather closed in like a cloak and yesterday’s white lace bonnets were today grey skull caps and as it continued to rain the spray from the traffic made the journey difficult and miserable.  In the rear view mirror we could see that it was brighter behind us and to the west so after a couple of junctions we abandoned the excursion to Vitoria-Gasteiz, left the motorway and began a much earlier than planned return journey.

We kept away from the motorway however and plotted a route that kept us inland and on the minor roads through the small villages and green fields of the Basque Country and as we drove west the weather improved and it stopped raining.  We had no plans now so we just drove through the swirling mists of the clouds as they crawled over the sides of the hills and down into the valleys and then we reached the little town of Artziniega, which looked busy and interesting so we parked the car and went to investigate.

It was only a small town but with an interesting historical centre with narrow cobbled streets, grand villas (some abandoned), honey coloured stone buildings and an altogether different style to that in Cantabria.  Whatever had been happening ten minutes previously and had encouraged us to stop however was clearly all over now because the town was languid and quiet and we met only a few people as we dawdled around the attractive streets stopping regularly to admire views of the surrounding countryside that was so green a leprechaun would surely feel at home.

We drove on and although it remained overcast the weather was still improving when we reached the larger town of Balmaseda and stopped again.  There was nothing especially picturesque about the town which has a rather functional appearance but it seemed friendly enough and this being a weekend and a festival day as well (May 1^st, Labour Day) the main square in front of the Town Hall and Church was full of people just wandering aimlessly from one conversation to another in that sociable, Saturday morning sort of way that Spanish people do.

After a drink in a traditional bar with a room full of excitable local people we left Balmaseda and continued our journey on a route that unexpectedly took us out of the Basque Country and for a few kilometres through neighbouring Castilla y Leon on our way towards the town of Valle de Villaverde.  Due to a historical quirk Valle de Villaverde is a municipality with an interesting geographical arrangement because it is an exclave Cantabrian town that is surrounded by the Basque municipalities of Carranza, Arcentales and Trucíos.  Basque nationalists want to incorporate Valle de Villaverde into the surrounding Basque province but Cantabria is not minded to cooperate and Basque nationalism is less strong in the west of the region and the residents of Valle de Villaverde are generally speaking happy to remain Cantabrian.

Euskadi, The Basque Country

Soon after I booked the Easyjet flights to Bilbao in January I began to tell people that I would be travelling to Spain in April but by the time of the trip I had started to be more specific and was referring to it as Northern Spain and to be completely accurate the Basque Country.  This was because the more research that I carried out ahead of the trip it was clear that I would not be visiting Spain at all because the Basque Country, although part of the Kingdom of Spain is something altogether different.

The Basque Country, or Euskadi in the Basque language, is part of the larger Basque region that also includes Navarre and spills into northern France and is an Autonomous Community of northern Spain that was granted the status of historical region in the Spanish Constitution of 1978.  The capital is Vitoria-Gasteiz (Vitoria is the name in Spanish, Gasteiz in Basque) and Bilbao is its largest city.

It was an early morning flight and I slept for most of the journey but woke up as the plane began to descend shortly before crossing the coast of the Bay of Biscay just east of Bilbao so I was in time to see the ribbon of golden sand and behind that the glorious green of the forests and the alpine like mountains rising dramatically out of the sea and concealing lakes and rivers in the valleys and criss-cross gorges of the interior.

In contrast to the grand scenery of the natural environment Bilbao airport was a stark modern structure, a sprawling bleached concrete welcome mat that was austere and unattractive.  To be fair it was undergoing extensive refurbishment so perhaps we weren’t seeing it at its best but it was certainly somewhere to pass through quickly.  It was a shame then that we had to stay longer than we would really have liked because the Sol-Mar car hire desk was a tedious slow moving disaster.

There was a long queue and only one clerk on duty and each customer seemed to take about fifteen minutes to sign up, which meant a thirty minute wait for us as we were third in line.  The whole process was completely inefficient and nothing seemed to be prepared for dealing with what were after all, all pre booked customers.  As the line of people behind became more irritable and impatient the tension began to rise and I was relieved when it was my turn to get to the desk but as I did so the clerk disappeared into the back office for a five-minute break.

When she returned it took her about ten more minutes to double the original website quotation through the inevitable addition of insurance, airport tax and the cost of a tank of fuel but this didn’t shock me because this is normal practice for all the car hire companies who all now seem to have adopted the Ryanair business model for surprising unsuspecting customers with a range of additional charges.

We were relieved to complete the process, get outside into the fresh air and then take temporary possession of a flame red Seat Ibiza and we pointed it in the direction of the city of Santander on the Autovia del Cantabria.  It was a bit overcast but quite warm and soon we were driving in a wide motorway loop from east to west around the city of Bilbao which after Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Seville is the fifth largest in Spain.  It is also one of the most industrialised and the road took us past large heavy manufacturing plants, engineering works and a huge power station that was belching out flames and fumes.  Behind them the mountain sides had been deforested and carved away for mineral extraction to support the metallurgy industries that had been the original source of Bilbao’s prosperity but we were soon past this and the road began to follow the coast line, the scenery improved and it started to brighten up.

We were heading for the seaside town and fishing port of Castro Urdiales and after about thirty kilometres or so after we had past out of the Basque Country and into Cantabria we left the motorway and drove through the outskirts of the town and straight to the seafront and by the time we had parked the car and set off along the promenade the sun was beginning to poke through.