Day 38 Sat 3/6/17
Our host cooked a nice breakfast of omelette, toast and homemade preserves, freshly squeezed orange juice and coffee/tea at 9AM and then we set off for Bilbao. It was only 13.5C and grey weather so we had the top up and Kay wore jeans for the first time in a while. We settled in a back roads route and stumbled across a virtually abandoned village perched under a rock face, the village was called Cellorigo and the roads to it were circuitous and narrow.
11 people live there officially
Further along the road we drove into Miranda del Ebro and were fascinated by an old bridge ( which turned out to be another Carlos III creation ) so found a parking space and went out to explore.
Carlos III Bridge
We saw a couple of people wearing fairly extravagant garb and as we walked into town found many more of all colours. We had stumbled upon the town celebration of San Juan del Monte fiesta. The public holiday is on Monday but clearly the celebrations start on Saturday. It looked as though the whole town was involved, young and old, either dressed in “team” colours ( of which there were many ) or playing in one of the many Xarangas or Fanfares which played as they marched through the main streets with the teams.
We followed them over the Carlos III bridge, which was now closed to traffic and saw them all converge on a square in the far side of the river. Back in the bridge we saw a slightly bizarre happening where two people from the fore rescued service were in the river freeing wires and pulleys of weed before a group of people in an upstairs window pulled one of two drums from under the water to the window.
Back in the car and a stop in LeClerc for supplies during which time the heavens opened and a thunder storm developed. We felt so sorry for the fiesta celebrants in the centre of town.
As we drove away from Miranda we left the rain behind and soon had the top down. We stopped beside a river in Espejo for lunch and realised that we had strayed into Basque Country when we found that we couldn't read the signs.
Back on the road it wasn’t long before we had to put the top up as rain set in. We drove to Bilbao and arrived about a couple of hours before Katy was due to land so went to the beach. By this stage it was raining heavily and we managed to get fairly wet whilst buying a parking ticket from the machine and then going to a beach café for a coffee.
Picking up Katy from the airport was easy, the short term parking literally just across the road from Arrivals. We took the peage to San Sebastián because the weather had seriously broken down and the roads were seriously wet. We had an easy check in at the Hotel Avenida and quickly decided on a taxi to the old town because it was still raining heavily. Some great pinchos and taps in a few bars, some following advice from Claire following her trip here.
Spoots in a cream and almond sauce - fantastic!
The best cheesecake in the world!!!!
The rain had stopped by the time we had finished, and Real Madrid had beaten Juventus in the Champions League final, so we started to walk home, but the 42 minutes walk seemed a bit daunting so got a taxi and zoomed home after a great evening.
Ciruena to San Sebastián 181 miles. Total trip 3847 miles
