What a day! I’m not sure exactly how many kilometres I’ve walked but it’s up there with my longest ever stages on Camino. My phone says 55,000 steps and 41.5 kms but who knows how accurate that is. Anyway it was big!
The lights went on in the albergue at 6.40am and I was out walking by seven. It was dark for another hour so a bit of care was required pathfinding and pothole missing.
Eventually, dawn broke and things became more visible. No guesses which way I was to go here, into the forest and up the hill!
From the top, the next valley appeared, filled with mist. The path plunged down and into it.
After two and a half hours I came across a village with an open bar - breakfast at last.
There followed another couple of hours of road walking as I entered the grungy satellite towns of Bilbao. One more enormous climb and Bilbao came into view.
As you can sort of see here, Bilbao is ribbon shaped city build in a valley.
As far as stats go, Bilbao is the largest city in the province of Biscay and in the Basque Country as a whole. With a population of 347,343 as of 2024, it is the 11th-largest city in Spain, and the largest in northern Spain.
The greater metropolitan area, which I assume includes Portugalete where I am staying tonight, has 1,037,847 inhabitants. It’s big, and it took a long time to walk through it!!
The central part of the city runs along an estuary, with tree-lined promenades on both sides. I love that everyone gets access to all of this via the paths, benches and bikeways. It’s very beautiful and it was buzzing today.
I walked along the edge of the estuary for the best part of 15 kilometres in the afternoon sun. Along the way, I passed the stunning Guggenheim museum.
Wow, can the Spanish do buildings! And sculptures!
And bridges!
As I moved out of the central part of the city the estuary began to look more like an industrial port. Having said that, there was development and redevelopment happening almost the entire length of the estuary to Portugalete, which is on the ocean end. That meant dodging a lot of machinery, barriers, trucks, workmen etc.
Bilbao looks like a city going ahead. It’s going to look amazing when it’s finished (in fact, it already does).
After nine hours of walking (not counting an hour or so of resting) I reached the Vizcaya Bridge, which has a car and passenger ferry suspended from wires attached to wheels on tracks passing high above the cabin. It slides from side to side across the estuary (River Nervión). I paid 55 euro cents to get across. The bridge was build in 1893 and was declared a Workd Heritage site in 2006.
Once I reached the other side it was a final kilometre hill climb in Portugalete to the accommodation I eventually managed to secure - a one star pension called Pension Norte.
The reason accommodation was so tricky to find was because a bunch of albergues close for the winter today (30 September)!! I hope this isn’t going to be an ongoing stress. I sense the number of pilgrims may decrease from here on. I have certainly a few who were needing to stop in Bilbao. We’ll see.
Anyway, that’s pretty much it for what’s been a long tiring day. I’m bushed and ready for bed. No late night dining in Bilbao for this weary peregrino.
Buenas noches amigos.
💤💤😴💤💤