The Boys Go Basque

Day 1 – Bilbao

I don’t want to sound like a spoilt little boy, but what happened to the good old days when you buy a plane ticket, go to the check-in counter, board, land and 30 minutes after deplaning you’re in whatever location you were flying to? Queues, security, more security, more queues, masks, more queues and security, and a four and a half hour flight turns in to a day’s work. So Yoni, Garry, Mark and I each navigated our own routes and hassles to get to Bilbao, the start of a week’s jaunt in Basque Country and Rioja. I really shouldn’t complain, should I?

I have always dreamt of travelling the Basque country, but other than delicious pintxos, really didn’t know what to expect. I Certainly didn’t expect Bilbao to be such an elegant, laid back city that at once is very European in its appearance, but different from others.. What most struck me from the outset was the architectural variety. On one particular street corner/plaza that had 5 streets leading into it, there were buildings representing 70’s modernist, art deco, neo Flemish revivalist (thank god for google lens and Wikipedia), 1940’s Francoist (ditto) and Grandiose French Second Empire (ditto once more) styles. You could see a sky scraper down one of the streets and a neo gothic church down another. They were all well preserved and rather than it being a confusing eye-sore, it somehow had a cosmopolitan feel.  Almost all 4 or 5 story buildings had balconies and wrought iron railings that were not necessarily the same, but this gave the streets a certain cosmopolitan, varied feel. On both sides of the river that divides the city, there are tree lined avenues. And if we’re talking architecture, it seems so fitting that Bilbao is home to the visually striking Guggenheim Museum. Many of Europe’s grand cities have a unified architectural style. Bilbao’s varied styles makes it stand out in a fascinating way.

Now I don’t want to sound like a heathen, but culture, architecture, style…that’s not why you come to Bilbao. Food and drink. And boy, did we dive straight in.  After check-in, we immediately set of to test the rumours that Basque food was ok. We found a bar 50 metres from the hotel that was totally local, working class, and not flashy. 3 cortados (a Spanish macchiato), por favor, Ernesto. And our first portions of pintxos. Heaven. Over the next 2 days Ernsesto and the 4 touristo loco became great friends. We emptied his drink cabinet, forced him to reorder coffee beans, and he couldn’t make enough pintxos to keep us satisfied. I think he’s holidaying in the Seychelles now, after both the work he put into us and the Euros he received. Seriously, finding a local hangout near your accommodation where you can briefly form a relationship with a true local is one of the joys of travelling, beyond the museums and sights.

I won’t bore you with descriptions of jamon and charcuterie boards, tortilla (Spanish omelet, not Mexican wraps) filled with all manner of stuff, sardines and olives on a tooth pick, seafood, lots of octopus, manchego cheese in a variety of uses. If you do make it to Bilbao, head over to the Plazza Nuevo. It’s a large plaza enclosed on all 4 sides by two story traditional buildings. There are bars lining the plaza, each offering about 20 different types of pintxos, so you can do a pintxos crawl without having to burn off too many calories. It’s slightly more expensive than other places…2.5 € per plate/skewer rather than 1.5 at Ernesto. A glass of very drinkable Rioja will lay you back another 2.5 €. Locally made vermut (vermouth) the same. And its full of people doing what Spaniards do. Having fun.

After gouging ourselves on pintxos, we needed to walk a few kilometers to justify the kilograms of dinner.

Dinner was a strange one. I looked up online recommended restaurants, checked menus and booked at Aitxiar, just an unassuming local joint. Well…unassuming must be the biggest understatement ever. It was a not very busy bar in a busy area, that had a banal few tables in a glass cage half a floor beneath the bar. This was the restaurant. On a scale of 0-10 in ambience, it scored -5. We waited 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 8 minutes for someone to relate to the 3 lost looking gringos standing around embarrassingly.  At this point we seriously considered doing a runner, but since we had booked (IMO, we were the first clients EVER to have actually booked), we plonked ourselves down, expecting the worst.

Our waitress, who looked as lost as us, came around with a hastily printed piece of paper in Spanish, outlining the menu, (In Spain this means set menu). I had been very clear (I hoped) that we had a vegetarian amongst us, and Jessica, our waitress assured us that there were indeed portions for Garry. We weren’t quite so sure when she somewhat hopefully asked if vegetarian meant that he ate fish.

So, with much trepidation, we started our meal. The first course came out, and to our surprise it was a very enjoyable salad with fresh tuna, tomato concasse and pepper vinaigrette. The next first course came out, a fabulous mushroom risotto. The third first course was octopus and the first courses were finished with I honestly don’t remember. And you know what? They were all delicious. We didn’t understand that the menu entitled us to everything on the first course list. There were 4 items on the main course list and we dreaded having to suffer through four more delicious portions. Thankfully, we got to choose only one. My monkfish was superb and my 2 companions equally enthused about theirs. And Jessica, who at first was as reticent as we were, realized that the three old gringos really were quite nice, relaxed and through very broken English showed us her bubbly fun personality, which almost overcame the formica table ambience. 

We were way too full for dessert, so only ordered cheese cake with mango sauce and chocolate brownies. By the time we waddled out, we were glad we hadn’t run away. Aitxiar received a zero for ambience but a ten for food. All in, a good deal.

Yoni and I had started our day at 3 a.m. in Tel Aviv, Garry a bit closer, in Portugal and Mark was still en-route from Riga. It might sound exotic and fun, but by 11 at night, we were exhausted. And yet, as our walk back to the hotel passed numerous bars we just couldn’t resist a night cap of gin and tonics, red wine and Andalusian sherry. Boy, did we sleep well that night.