Basque-ing in the Glow of Bilbao Pintxos

At 5:30, the REI trip group assembled downstairs to meet each and meet our guides, Aner and Bea.  Aner is Basque from San Sebastian, while Bea is from Madrid.  They showed good leadership in our first meeting, and have been good guides thus far.

After some introductory remarks and details, we headed out for a walk around parts of Bilbao, before heading into old city Bilbao.

(My office is in Old Town Alexandria, which was founded in 1749.  Bilbao was founded officially in the year 1300.  Their old city is older than my old town, which I suppose is a reason we come to Spain!).

We walked past the Guggenheim, where Aner talked about modern art.  While we disagree, I don't really care -- I don't see his job as to enlighten me about this crap we call modern art, but instead to guide Carol and I along the Camino de Santiago.

We're doing seven days of hiking along the, as Keith Jackson would say, the Granddaddy of Them All.  The Camino was used by pilgrims as early as the 9th century (for those of you bad at history, yes, that means it was founded before the Appalachian Trail).  There are multiple routes. . .this trip has us for a couple of days along the Camino del Norte (route of the north, or Coastal Route), a couple of days on the Primitivo Route (Original Way), and a couple of days on the Camino Frances (French Way).

We are not doing the full 100 kilometers (62 miles) or more, so we will not be considered true pilgrims.  Instead, we wanted the variety of terrain and views that the three routes offer.  All total, we will be hiking around 43 miles.  Some hike hundreds of miles.

Carol has wanted to do the Camino since she learned about it in Spanish class in high school.  I never heard of it until she mentioned it a few years ago.  We watched the movie, "The Way," which is a great movie to enjoy if you want to learn more about it.  (Apparently the movie has significantly increased the popularity of the Camino in the US.  Everybody on this trip has seen it, and most were inspired to do this by the movie.  Carol was cool and trendy about the Camino before it was cool and trendy!)

Anyhow, we then walked back to the striking Zubizari Bridge (the link is worth the short time it takes to read it), where Aner filled us in on the history. . .and histronics. . .of it.

We headed to the old city to get dinner.  There had been a march in support of the vote in Catalonia that day, and we saw the peaceful march from a distance.  The old city was still crowded with marchers who were looking to quench their thirst at the bars and continue to talk politics.

All fourteen of us shoehorned into a reserved table at a Pintxos bar in the main square.  (Alas, I did not catch the name of the bar).  They brought plate after plate of pintxos, and bottle after bottle of Rioja.  In my book, Rioja is one of the two leading wine regions of Spain (Priorat being the other one, unless Catalonia is successful in seceding!).  We had a great meal, and had a good time chatting with the couple who sat across from us -- they had just arrived that morning, and so were jet-lagged, but stayed awake, alert, and talkative.

My dad was fond of saying (and I am fond of quoting it) that "the rich eat late, and so do we."  In Spain, everyone eats late!