Wed 27 Sept - morning walk, 1100h, border, mountains, Bilbao, hills, cows, stadium

We enjoyed our beach walks so much yeterday that we repeated them again this morning, but neither of us got lost on the way home. The panorama from south to north was impressive, and the beach was just a little bit less crowded than it was yesterday.

As a result of our beach walk, we didn't get away from the campsite until 1100h. But we were soon heading south beyond Batonne and Biaritz and taking a nice coastal route with several beach towns scattered along the way. Within 90 minutes we were crossing the border into Spain near the town of Donostia-San Sebastian. I was surprised by the mountainous nature of the Spanish countryside. I had always thought that Spain was flat, but I was obviously over-influenced by the inner regions of Spain which are hot and dry and flat. The coastal regions around here are very mountainous, but I shouldn't be too surprised because they are an extension of the Pyrénées. The other thing that surprised me was the quickness of the Spanish trucks. Clearly they either don't have truck speed limits, or they simply ignore them, because we were regularly being passed by trucks when I was sitting on the posted speed limit, even going uphill!

Our destination for the day was Bilbao, and we arrived there around 1400h, after a very enjoyable drive through the hills.

To get to our campground, we had to drive though the city and then up some steep, winding hills, to get to the campground that was perched on a ledge overlooking the city. After we checked in at the gate, we were allocated to a space which had a marvelous view from the campervan cabin. I don't know how we scored such a good spot - maybe it was because we said we wanted to stay for a few days!

Given that we were camped on a hill, we took advantage of that and went for a late afternoon walk through the adjacent parkland and up into the hills a bit. Along the way we got an even better view of the town below us, with the river, the stadium, and the new and old towns.

As we walked along the road up into the hills, Rita heard what sounded like a very familiar sound. And it didn't take long to work out what it was.

We came back to the campground to finish setting up and when we went to connect our hose to the water tap, we found that none of our connectors would work. Luckily the campers next door were from Germany and when they saw we were having problems, they came over and explained that the connections were of German (not French) design. Luckily they had a spare connector, which they loaned to us to fill our tank. We found out later that the little store at Reception sold such connectors, so we bought one for later use.

After dinner, we went for a sunset walk in the hills. The views over the back of the hill and down towards the sea were spectacular, and already we had become a fan of Bilbao as a place to come back to again in the future.

As sunset faded, the skies darkened and the full moon appeared, we also got a great shot of the city below, accompanied by sound effects from the crowd in the football stadium, where Bilbao Athletico were playing a home game. The "oohs" and "aahs" of the crowd, and the singing when Athletico were ahead, was a joy to behold. But sadly the crowd was left speechless when a last minute goal left the final score 2-2.

Thurs 28 Sept - sunrise, shirt tag, Guggenheim, old town, up the hill, lookout

Not only did we get a wonderful sunset last night, but this morning we were also greeted by a beautiful sunrise.

As we were getting ready to go out this morning, I felt something strange in my new shirt. Further investivation showed that there was a security tag still attached to the shirt. Not only did it make the shirt slightly uncomfortable to wear, but I didn't want to walk into a store and then have all the alarms go off when I left. So I decided to remove the tag. But that was easier said than done, as you would expect with a security tag. I finally realised that I was not going to be able to remove it intact. So I got to work disassembling the tag, and 20 minutes pater I had it in pieces and out of my shirt.

I had recently bought this new shirt, because one of our objectives in Bilbao was to visit the Guggenheim Museum, and I wanted to look not too scruffy. So we were soon on our eBikes to ride down the hill to the city, and then along the river to the museum, past the old dockyard.

The initial view of the museum lived up to all our expectations, and encouraged us to continue.

Shortly after we entered the building, we paused to admire the view upwards. And later, when we had climbed the stairs, we admired the view downwards just as much. While the Guggenheim has many exhibitions on at any point in time, the building itself is always a highlight.

There were several displays by various artists, all with their own characteristc style. Some of the sights are shown below. Some of them were amazing the way they turned a 2D canvas into a 3D image.

One painting had me totally unimpressed to begin with - just a canvas painted with streaky brown paint - much like I've done on walls at home. But as I walked closer, the detail in the painting became clearer, and conveyed a totally different emotion.

Some exhibits just looked interesting, like these silver blobs on the floor, reflecting the lighting display high above.

Other exhibits feature the famous (Andy Warhol) and some simply challenged convention (e.g. why should paintings lie flat on a wall; why not at right-angles to the wall?)

However, the exhibit that left the greatest impression on me was the over-sized weathered steel sculptures by Richard Serra. Several large installations take up an entire exhibition space. The parabolic shapes of the sculptures blend well with the architecture of the space, both from outside and inside the sculptures.

It is hard to capture the scale of the installation from ground level within the exhibition space, so I have borrowed a photo from one of the many online stories about Serra. Here you can see all the pieces on display, and the scale of the pieces (from the person standing at the entrance to one of the pieces at bottom-right). But what is even more amazing than the visual aspects of the exhibit, is the way your mood can change as you walk into, through, and out of the pieces. Because none of the steel walls is straight or vertical, they appear to close in on you or open up as you walk through them. This affects your reactions and mood as you relate to the walls around you. It's quite a surreal experience.

We stayed for about 4 hours in the museum and could have stayed for longer, but our senses were overloaded and we needed to take a break. So, after a quick lunch in the Museum Cafe, we headed off, but not before having a closer look at the spider sculpture that we had earlier seen from inside the museum. Quite eerie!

We walked along the river towards the old part of town, and along the way we realised that art was not confired to the Guggenheim, as illustrated by the Emancipation sculpture and the Art Deco bandstand.

We wandered around the old town for a while, then had a drink with the locals at a cafe in front of the old church. Then it was back on our eBikes to ride back past the Guggenheim and then UP the hill to the campground. Thank god for eBikes!

After dinner, we decided to go for a ride through the hills at the back of the campground (where we had walked last night), and because we were on our bikes we went to the lookout at the very top pf the hill, where we got another great view over the city. After sunset, we coasted back down the hill to the campground, and we pleased to go to bed earlier after a great day in Bilbao.

Fri 29 Sept - Spooky Man, Leon, Astorga, cathedral, Gaudi Palace, Plaza de Toros

A strange thing happened on our way out of the Bilbao campground this morning. As I was filling our water tank, a campervan pulled up beside us, and I heard someone say "Are you a Spooky Man?. Now, normally that would sound wierd coming from a campervan driver in Spain. But I quickly realised that I was wearing a Spookey Men's Chorale (a men's singing group from Australia) t-shirt, which prompted the question. After I responded that, even with my long grey hair and beard (essential pre-requisities for most Spookey Men), I was not a member of the group, but just a fan of them, he then explained that he was from Stockholm and had seen them perform there, and had even billetted two of them overnight. It just reinforced on me what a small world we live in, where one could be asked such a question so far from home!

We proceeded with our preparations, and eventually left Bilbao around 1000h (although we will definitely return here in the future). Today, we are headed south-west toward Astorga, a sister town of Moissac.

We headed through the mountains south of Bilbao, and eventually reached the plains and turned westward. The countryside was now much more like what I expected in Spain, and very similar to Australian conditions. After about 4 hours we turned back into the mountains and headed for the town of León, which we had read a bit about in travel booklets. But this was a bit of a letdown, as the town was full of very narrow streets and lots of traffic, and nothing so outstanding that it was worth trying to find somewhere to park the campervan. So after going round in circles for a little while, we exited the town and headed for nearby Astorga.

Here we found a camping area on the edge of the town, right next to an old bullring at Plaza de Toros. It had no campervan facilities to speak of, but looked relatively secure with quite a few campers already parked by early-afternoon. So we parked there and headed off into the town on our eBikes.

Astorga was much quieter than León, and relatively easy to navigate. We soon stumbled upon the Astorga Cathedral, which is one of the reasons why it is a sister city of Moissac. The entrance to the cathedral was similar to, but even more grand than, the one at Moissac.

The exterior of the cathedral was so impressive that we paid our money and went inside to the museum and cathedral proper. It was well worth it, as the museum was informative and the interior of the cathedral was grand and gilted. The background to the altar was spectacular and the flying cherubs were over the top. But my favourite was the modern stained glass window with the "smiley face" looking out at the congregation.

Having spent an hour or so inside the cathedral, we ventured outside and continued walking, but were soon greeted by an abolute surprise - the Gaudi Palace! Having visited the Gaudi Cathedral (the Sagrada Família) in Barcelona a few years ago, we were pleased to find this "little" gem tucked away in another corner of Spain. Built between 1889 and 1913, the Palace was designed by Gaudi for the Bishop of Astorga after the original Episcopal Palace was burnt to the ground. Gaudi only worked on the Palace for a few years, and resigned in 1893 after the death of the bishop, and never saw the project through to completion. Nonetheless, the building carries that iconic Gaudi school of design through the centuries, echoing the design of the Astorga Cathedral, seen below in the background on the left.

After exploring the three floors of the Gaudi Palace, we joined a crowd in the cafe in the surrounding park for a quiet cool drink, and then weaved our way to the centre of the town on our bikes. As evening approached, we made our way to the cobble-stone plaza which was surrounded by cafes and restaurants. We looked for the one with the most customers (as a sign of its quality), and found a table. As 1900h arrived, the bells atop the nearby church started chiming, and many people left their cafe seats to film the event. I joined them, but the bells were very "clanky" and not very musical, so all I've included below is a picture of the bells. Also, we later realised that the food at the restaurant wasn't all that great, and that many of the customers were there for the view, and not for the food.

As night approached, we jumped on our bikes and headed back to the Plaze de Toros for an early night in the security of the campervan.

Sat 30 Sept - AFL GF, away at 1030h, el Camino walkers, gums, Atalaia Foz, beach

I was up early at 0630h to watch the AFL Grand Final from the Melbourne Cricket Ground. While neither of the competing teams (Collingwood Magpies and Brisbane Lions) were my team, I thought I may as well watch the game given that I had already paid for my Watch AFL subscription as part of my Hawthorn Membership. And 150 minutes later, I was really glad I watched, as it was one of the best Grand Finals I had ever seen (only marginally behind the 1989 GF when Hawthorn beat Geelong in a classic match). Collingwood ended up winning by 4 points, but the score difference was never more that 13 points and there were 18 changes of the lead, as shown below. A spellbinding game to watch!

After recovering from the Grand Final and having some breakfast, we were on our way north towards the coast, and heading for the town of Foz. We often select the towns we want to go to based on what camping sites are available near the town, as shown in our apps Park4Night and CamperContact.

Along the way we started to see the first of the walkers on the El Camino - at one point, there was at least one walker every 200m. We also started to see the first of the eucalypt trees.

By early afternoon, we had arrived at the Atalaia Campsite in Foz. One of the reasons we chose this campground was that, in addition to sounding good with full facilities, it only cost 13 euro per night! And it was only about 200m from the beach. So as soon as we had settled in, we unloaded the eBikes and then headed down to the water, where there was water to the West...                                                       ...and water to the East (with the town of Foz behind).

Before too long, we had found a sandy beach, and Rita was keen to sample the water. After her swim, she took advantage of the warm weather and sunshine to have a rest up the back of the beach.

After the swim, we continued on to the town of Foz, where we stopped for a cool drink, and then turned around and headed west along the beach again to return to the campground, passing over this bridge across an inlet along the way.