The train from Barcelona to Bilbao takes seven hours.
It’s not cheaper than flying, exactly, but I’m on a slow travel kick these days, and anyway, trains have more of a vibe.
You can better appreciate the geography when you go somewhere on wheels. Plus you don’t have to show up hours early to the train station. And Spanish trains are usually on time.
Today, though, my train on the Barcelona – Bilbao line stops for no apparent reason in the middle of a Basque forest.
It just sits there. Then goes a few kilometers. Then stops again.
After a while, there’s an announcement. We’re now running 40 minutes late.
When we finally get into Bilbao, unofficial capital of the Basque Country, I really need to move my legs. All I’ve eaten today are the little ham sandwiches my wife Morena made for me, so I’m also hungry.
I check into the hotel and then walk out along the River Nervión for an hour, until the left bank is all semi-abandoned industrial buildings. There’s an artificial island in the center of the river, a kilometer and a half long, called Zorrotzaurre. It looks semi-abandoned as well. But there are a few new residential buildings being put up along one edge.
Apparently this area used to be steel country. The Spanish steel industry collapsed back in the 70s and 80s, along with the local economy it supported. The Nervion river was so polluted it was biologically dead.
The Guggenheim museum, with its famous titanium exterior designed by Frank Gehry, opened in 1997. That was part of a project to revitalize Bilbao. And it worked! The current version of Bilbao is nothing like the “tough city” it was in the 80s.
I walk inland a bit to find something to eat. Pintxos seem a bit too light, so I end up in a kebab shop. Sajid Kebab has a historical map of Punjab on the wall, and 4.1 stars on Google Maps. A durum and a small bottle of water costs 7 euros.
On my way out, the guy behind the counter asks me where I’m from. I say “Barcelona” without thinking, then wince.
I’m not from Barelona.
Competing nationalisms in Bilbao
On a narrow street in Central Bilbao there’s a giant Spanish flag hanging off the front of the Comandancia Naval.
I wonder why anyone would put such a huge flag on such a small street, until I look to my right and see that across a small plaza, there’s an equally huge Basque flag flying on the front of another building.
Ah! The competing nationalisms.
The Comandancia Naval belongs, of course, to the Spanish Navy. The building with the Basque flag turns out to be the headquarters of the PNV – the Basque Nationalist Party – which has been in power up here for most of Spain’s young democracy. (The current constitution was signed in 1978, and the PNV has run the Basque Country for all but four of the years since then.)
If the Basque Country is famous internationally – and I’m not sure it is – it’s either because of its cuisine, the Guggenheim, or the Basque people’s long history of conflict with Spain.
General Franco’s ham-handedness in dealing with nationalist groups both during the Spanish Civil War and afterwards pissed off multiple generations of Basques and Catalans.
Reading about it now, it seems like a lot of the problems in post-Franco Spain could have been avoided if the Generalísimo had just been able to calm down. But he couldn’t, and Spain is still dealing with the consequences.
Back downtown, it’s a busy Friday night, and everyone is out at the bars having pintxos with their friends. Looking at people enjoying their lives on a summer night like this makes me feel old and alone.
I head back to the hotel early, and go to bed.
Ceuta, chaos, and coffee
The next day I’m awake at 7:00, and find a café open even though it’s still dark. The sun comes up as I’m drinking my coffee. The news on the little TV is all about the continuing disaster down in Ceuta – the 70,000+ people running across the border, or swimming around the breakwater, and then camping on the beach.
Now the National Police on duty that day in Ceuta claim they were told to open the gates on the border and then stand aside, letting everyone in. For reasons of safety, of course.
Meanwhile, the government is still acting like nothing has happened, when it’s obvious to everyone we’ve been invaded. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on the TV won’t take responsibility. He’s apparently planning to bow and scrape before the king of Morocco until he’s out of office.
It seems we’re in the “weak men make hard times” part of the historical cycle.
After my coffee, I walk around looking for some breakfast – and a second coffee.
I end up across the river at Bar Tranvía, which someone on Google Maps has said has the “best breakfast in Bilbao”. I have a pintxo de tortilla con bonito, and just to blend in, a big bollo de mantequilla, a roll crusted with sugar and filled with whipped butter.
The butter is also whipped with sugar – about as much sugar as I usually have in a month. I’d imagine that if I were a five-year-old Basque child, this would be my favorite food.
Recalling simpler times in Getxo
Thus fortified, I decide to take the metro to Getxo, a wealthy suburb of Bilbao that I once visited, years ago.
Actually, I remember being in Getxo in August 2008, and I know it was August 2008 because of something that happened while I was there. My friends from Santander drove us out for a daytrip, and I clearly recall standing next to a newsstand and reading the headlines saying that stocks had started falling over in the US, due to some sort of subprime loan crisis.
“Oh well,” I thought. “I guess that’s the end of capitalism. And it’s a pity, too. I’ve just achieved a four-figure bank balance for the first time in my life.”
I mean, I don’t think in complete sentences like that. And I can’t tell you exactly what I thought on that summer afternoon almost 20 years ago, but it was something to that effect.
The economic crisis took another year or so to actually reach Spain, and several more years to leave. I wrote about that in my article on revisiting the Great Recession.
Today, it’s hard to believe that I spent all morning without knowing what was going on in the world, until I walked past a newsagent’s at 2PM to read headlines. But those were different times.
It actually sounds like a pretty relaxing way to live, in hindsight.
Getxo real estate and Silicon Valley refugees
Getxo has a little beach, and several big palacetes along the riverbank, and I immediately decide I need to get very rich so I can move Morena and our soon-to-be-born daughter out here.
The scenery is beautiful, and people are mostly classy as well.
A nearby real estate agency informs me that for 10 million euros, I can get a 1000-square-meter duplex in one of these little palaces. Maybe my podcast donors could help out with the down payment.
Then I consider that it probably rains for half the year, and that if you want to live in the rainy north, you could get a palacete in Cantabria much cheaper. Crisis averted.
I walk down the estuary towards the city center, stopping for another coffee on the terraza outside a beautiful old hotel. There are a few other people around, looking wealthy.
A guy with expensive sneakers walks past with his wife. They sit at a table under a tree, and the guy says, in a strong American accent, “Silicon Valley and all that garbage… that’s exactly what I’m trying to get away from!”
Yeah, bro. You and me both.
Rabas and Rootlessness
The Basque Country has good meat, good cider, and good seafood.
But often, if you’re going to a local bar, you’re just ordering pintxos.
These are small portions of something, with a toothpick through them, and usually served on a piece of bread. At some bars, you just grab them yourself, then pay at the end according to how many toothpicks you’ve collected. But this system is easy to abuse, and it’s becoming less common.
On the main street in the Las Arenas neighborhood, I stop for some lunch, and enjoy several pintxos with a small alcohol-free beer. The waiters at Cosmopolita Café (Google Maps: 4.4 stars) are older guys who take the art of waitering seriously, which is always good to see. But the effect of the food is more bready than proteiny.
Down the street, I decide to get some rabas de calamar before heading back to Bilbao.
Rabas are a northern specialty, although they’re pretty simple: breaded and fried chunks of squid, served with a squeeze of lemon and even more bread. The ones I get are a bit oily, but filling.
When I’m done, the cook comes to take my plate, and asks me “¿Eres extranjero?”
I’m sure Bilbao gets plenty of tourists, but most of them stay within 400 meters of the Guggenheim. Either way, that’s a different question than “Where are you from?”
My brain processes for a second. I got Spanish nationality last year, so I’m not, technically, extranjero anymore.
“No, soy de aquí,” I say, before realizing that aquí around these parts probably means Basque Country and not Spain. “Bueno, de Barcelona”.
The cook gives me a bit of side-eye and says, “Ah, con tu acento. Entonces, eres catalán.”
I nod, and leave it at that, pay my 9 euros, and walk out of the bar, wondering who I am and where I’m actually from – and if the word from really means anything in my life.
Depends on what your definition of “from” is
I left my patch of Arizona desert in 2004, and I’ve barely been back since.
Am I “from” there, always and forever? Maybe. But afterwards, I spent about 13 of my early adult years living in Madrid. Maybe you could say I’m “from” there. That’s where I learned Spanish, and did my best to integrate into Spanish culture.
And more recently – yesterday, actually – I came to Bilbao “from” Barcelona. So in an immediate “how did you get here” sense you could say that I’m not a foreign tourist, but a Spanish person visiting from another province.
I used to think the question “Do you feel Spanish?” was stupid. But after getting nationality, I actually do feel Spanish. Recent events like the Ceuta invasion have awakened a deeper “feeling of Spanishness” in me.
I’m actually quite committed to this country, despite my appearance and foreign accent.
But that’s a lot to get into with every waiter, taxi driver, and random stranger who wants to chat. And going around the Basque Country saying “Soy español” could also be taken the wrong way.
Puente de Vizcaya
Besides witnessing the beginning of the Great Recession, the main thing I remember from last time I was in Getxo is Puente de Vizcaya, a huge iron bridge crossing the estuary.
The design is unique: you go across on a suspended shuttle or “gondola” that’s the size of a couple of city buses stuck together. Several dozen people will fit into the gondola, along with a few cars. A pedestrian ticket costs 60 cents, and it takes about 90 seconds to cross.
Just up the river there’s a little boat that’ll take you across in half the time, for just 55 cents. But Puente de Vizcaya is a part of Bilbao’s history, designed by a Basque disciple of Gustave Eiffel and built in 1893. An estimated 4 million people use it every year, and (from what I hear) the walkway along the top has some great views if you want to spring for the full tour.
Blown up and disabled to prevent Franco’s troops from crossing the river during the Civil War, the bridge was repaired, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. That’s patrimonio de la humanidad, in Spanish. Europe seems to be full of those.
Los Leones de San Mamés
On the way back to the hotel, the metro has several dozen supporters of Athletic de Bilbao standing around in red-and-white-striped jerseys. I guess football season is starting up again after the World Cup and summer hiatus.
Doing my research, I learn that the stadium that Athletic plays in is called San Mamés, after Saint Mammes of Caesarea.
Young Mammes was an orphan – both his parents were previous Christian martyrs – who was thrown to the lions by the Romans, around the year 275 AD. Instead of dying, he managed to tame the beasts by preaching to them.
Escaping from the circus, he was condemned to death by someone named Duke Alexander, and eventually stabbed in the gut with a trident. In artwork, he’s pictured with a lion, and the Athletic de Bilbao players are (to this day) nicknamed los leones de San Mamés.
Today Mammes is the patron saint of breastfeeding babies, bowel ailments, and broken bones.
Cycling Tour of Northern Spain
At Morena’s insistence, I agree to try the famous Basque Cheesecake.
This is, according to my friend Lauren over on Spanish Sabores, something of a pop-cultural phenomenon. Maybe that’s how people are hearing about the Basque Country these days.
Bascake Bilbao, near the previously-mentioned Comandancia Naval with its giant Spanish flag, is a tiny place with a broken credit card reader (Google: 4.7 stars). It’s got one woman working inside, and about 12 customers: a mix of locals, Chinese girls, and Americans doing the Camino de Santiago.
I decide I can afford the extra carbs. And in the end, Basque Cheesecake is more creamy than sweet. (I still prefer my mom’s cheesecake, with a layer of cream cheese and another of cherry jam.)
I can afford the carbs, in fact, because tomorrow I start another bike tour. I’m going along with a group of Dutch people to report on La Rioja and El Camino del Cid, organized by my friend Raúl at biketourinspain.com – the best place to book a cycling tour around Spain.
We leave from Bilbao, and start cycling in Peñacerrada, with six days taking us through Spanish wine country and some of the medieval towns on the high Castilian Plateau. With any luck, I’ll be tired and riding into Sigüenza by Friday at lunch time.
Stay tuned for updates. The journey will surely have plenty of culture, cardio, and Spanishness.
Yours,
Daniel AKA Mr Chorizo.
P.S. This article is about Bilbao, but if you’re headed to the Basque Country, my friends over at WalksDevour have several food tours, cooking classes and more in the scenic city of San Sebastian. Check those out here: WalksDevour in San Sebastian. I get a commission if you sign up, meaning it’s a good way to support this blog or the Spain to Go podcast. I did the Walks Tours “Alone in the Prado” experience a few years ago and it was great.
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