Trip to Bilbao

Up this morning at 5:30 to catch the flight to Bilbao. Good flight except for a few bumps coming in to Bilbao. Long queue to pick up the car but eventually got the keys to a Mercedes A200. Nice car with only 1000k on the clock. We took our time sorting out how it all worked before venturing out into the wide world on the wrong (right) side of the road. Missed a turn early on so ended up heading the wrong way. An hour or so later managed to find our way to the hotel.
After check in a quick rest and our first pinxtos (tapas) and headed off downtown for a bit of a look. Walked to the tourist office in the city. No sooner got there than the rains came. Had to taxi back to the hotel. Ate room service for dinner, overpriced and ordinary food. Bilbao was a surprise. It's located on a tidal river and surrounded by quite steep hills. The road system is phenomenal with under/over passes, enormous and elegant bridges and tunnels. Was sort of expecting a coastal place but it's just developed from an old valley town to a mega city in a spectacular location.Read more