Fortunately, the rest of the train ride was uneventful. The long break at Miranda de Ebro was, in fact, just a smoke break or a schedule catch up. Sadly, despite that being just 84km from Bilbao, we still had 2 hours of the journey left. Kieran was slightly kicking off, so we moved away from our Russian friends to a 4-seat area with a table and played some cards until we arrived.
Bilbao itself gave a… Not so great first impression. As we left the train station, it was pretty dimly lit and mildly creepy as we walked to our VRBO. There were a lot of 20-something guys just hanging out on the streets basically the whole way, a far cry from the families and mixed groups that we saw in Madrid nights. Despite the gruelling hill with all of our gear, we made it to our apartment without difficulty.
The apartment itself is smaller than our one in Madrid, but has the bebefit of two bedrooms. This puts an end to the late-night carrying of Jordan from one bed to the other. The fridge is also pretty small, but enough for the water we have been refilling! It was very late though, so straight to sleep for everyone.
Morning Bilbao is much nicer than 11pm Bilbao. We took a wander through the old town, making the obligatory stop at the Cathedral of Bilbao and the sister church that had entry included. The cathedral was much understated compared to the ones in Madrid and Toledo but was of course still beautiful. And it had lemon trees in the cloister!
Tge second church was even more spartan in it’s adornment, so we didn’t t end up spending a lot of time there. Next door, however, is the Ribera Mercado, the (allegedly) largest food market in Europe. We saw all sorts of fish, cheeses and meats for sale. We. Made our way to the pintxos area and got all sorts of great goodies. One black ink squid croquette died my teeth black (and somehow neither Jordan nor Emily partook in that one). But there were great little bites of shrimp with guacamole, battered cod and the star of the show, scallop in garlic. Washed down with Sangria, of course. Even Jordan tried her first sip of sangraia, which she enjoyed immensely.
Aftwr lunch at the market, we wandered around the souvenir shops and found, of course, a playground for Jordan to burn off some energy at. This was a great playground overlooking the river and a building that was maybe City Hall, with the train station across the street. Lots of kids were out and about. From there, it was more shops on the way back up the hill to our apartment. The most peculiar shop is one purporting to sell good luck charms consisting of famous people taking poops. And yes, the figurines did in fact include the outcome of these poops. Notably, the Donald Trump ones were sold out. Weird. Casting the crazy pooping statues aside, we made it back to the apartment (up the hill again!) to partake in the gray Spanish tradition of the Siesta.
Except Jordan didn’t want to, which was lots of fun to navigate. Saturday night in Bilbao is apparently the best night, so we wanted to be all prepared for it in our fanciest outfits that we brought. So we headed out agai n into the old town in search of a place to get food. And we fiunda restaurant themat was right next to a playground whichever ended up being perfect. Emily and I had our glasses of wine and sangria while Jordan ran around like a lunatic. We did get some food there (Kieran went gaga for the guacamole) which allowed Jordan to come in for some pitstops to charge up. Honestly, the vibes here were perfect, and we were definitely not the only parents doing this.
From there, it was time to find the national dessert of the Basque region, Basque Cheesecake. We succeed in this, though I think regular cheesecake, especially those made by Grandad are better than the Basque variety (but don’t let them know I said that). We continued wandering and hit up yet more souvenir shops, some of which had really banging playlists, allowing us to continue the vibes. The streets and alleys of Bilbao have really come alive by now, around 9pm.
We stopped at one more place to get Jordan some nuggets (and Emily and I more wine and Sangria)to finish out the evening. Then we made it back up the hill for the late Spanish bedtime of 10pm. All goes to show that Bilbao makes a much better impression than the train station arrival!
Leave a Reply