We didn’t stay long in France before diving into Spain. Bilbao is the capital of the region, and it had also been a long while that we dreamt of going there together. We were lucky to escape the heat of July and enjoy Bilbao in rainy gray weather – these colors suit it perfectly! One of Bilbao’s main iconic places is the Guggenheim Museum but for better or for worse, neither of us is a big fan of modern art, so we skipped visiting the museum – admiring its architecture was enough for us. As a bookworm, I felt some sort of excitement upon seeing the Spider sculpture (called Maman!) so thorouglly described by Robert Langdon in Dan Brown’s “Origin“. It reminded me of times where I used to have a separate blog for literary places – sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t bring it back to life.

Check out: One Day in San Sebastian

One of the best things about travelling by van is arriving to a certain place by night, sleeping over and in the morning discovering it from zero. Like a beautiful surprise.  This is what happened with us in the Parque Provinvial de Garaio – waking up and seeing THIS nature around was like a gift without a reason.

On this trip we tried to find out whether it was possible to survive exclusively on tapas, pintxos and sangria. The answer is yes, but it won’t be easy. On the day 4 we started suffering and craving for a simple home food. However, we had to walk this road until the end before the content of our bodies reached the point of 70% of sangria instead of water.

While putting this article together, I realized how many points on our itinerary didn’t make it here or how many of them we didn’t even take on picture. For example Guernica or a lake god knows where, where we had a magnificent swimming pause. I do hope to keep them in my memory though!

As a person without much of experience in terms of traveling in Spain, I was very happy to explore further than the towns close to the French border and Barcelona (coming soon!). My inner bookworm was searching for the Don Quixote atmosphere which would fit perfectly in the scenery of yellow fields and endless windmills…

Also, I’ve never seen that many travelers following the Camino de Santiago. On foot or with donkeys, alone or in small groups, I admire such endevours. As someone who, as the years pass by, prefers riding a bike than good old walking, I find people who cover on foot huge distances absolutely crazy. In a good way.

Our last big stop before coming back to France was in Pamplona. It did’t leave any big impressions, I suppose we were simply very tired and looking forward to coming back to Pau. Still, we were struck by how lively and crowded Pamplona was especially by night, despite the covid restriction. They had to cancel their annual festivities connected to the bull fighting and I can’t really say that we much regretted it. It didn’t prevent the crowds from gathering in the streets with their drinks though!

Gosh, I admit that writing this post wasn’t easy. First, as we don’t put any “useful” information any more, I didn’t know what to say apart from my “aaawws” and “ooowws” about each and every town we crossed. Secondly, this little trip is quite far in the past for me to share exactly the impressions from every step on the way. So consider these lines as the chaotics road notes. Nothing more.