Our next stop after Madrid is the Bilbao area. The Depeche tour went on to Barcelona and Lisbon before they get to Bilbao on Thursday, but since we’ve been to those other locations and had not ever been to Bilbao, we decided to spend extra time here. So this journal entry picks up on Friday, March 15th and takes us through today.
We tried a new mode of transportation today, which proved to be cost effective, interesting, and fast! Cristina has a 4-passenger car and was driving from Madrid to Bilbao. She advertised on BlaBla Car that she had room for passengers (great way to make income when you’re already driving somewhere and then you have someone to bla bla with on the way!). She told us her little dog, Pipa, would be riding with us. We met Cristina at the address she gave us, along with another passenger. Pipa rode in the back seat with Mike and me. Pipa was very sweet, although she needed a breath mint in a bad way…especially since she loved kissing us! Pipa started whining occasionally about ½ way into our 3 ½ hour drive. Cristina would shake her finger and yell at Pipa from the front seat, “PIPA NO! SHUSH! NO PIPA NO! RRRR!”. Pipa would be quiet for a while and then the pattern would repeat. We heard it so much that we have incorporated Cristina’s vernacular into ours (and say it regularly during various situations). We will always remember Cristina and Pipa. Cristina didn’t mess around driving. The top speed we noticed on her speedometer was the equivalent of 100 mph.
We found our way to our apartment via the Metro, which was about 30 minutes north of Bilbao on the Biscay Bay, in the town of Getxo (pronounced getcho).
After unpacking in our new home, we headed out to find something to eat for dinner. There are several restaurants a block from home by the beach, with amazing views, where we had pizzas, Mahou beer, and alfajores – delicious dulce de leche cakes that we first found in Buenos Aires.
After we were nourished, we walked 20 minutes to the grocery store to buy our essentials and meal ingredients for the week.
Saturday, we did our cardio by hiking and exploring the beautiful shoreline and scenic landmarks. We are loving living in Getxo! It is very family oriented (which seems to be Spain in general).
We cooked spaghetti at home for dinner and worked on our lodging and transportation for our next stop – Torino (Turin), Italy.
Sunday’s cardio was hiking the opposite direction from home into the old fishing port area and viewing the Vizcaya bridge (UNESCO World Heritage Site). It is the first bridge in the world to carry people and vehicles on a high suspended gondola. We walked along the street by the water that had gorgeous mansions with history plaques.
We celebrated St. Patrick’s day with home made beef stew and Guinness for dinner. Mike loves chocolate milk as a snack. In Spain, you have to mix your own. Monica told us about ColaCao, so we got some and had chocolate milk for dessert.
That brings us up to today, Monday. We didn’t have room to pack our blood pressure machine and it was time to do our monthly blood pressure checks. We walked to the local Farmacia and had it taken for 1 Euro each (all is good). We enjoyed the beautiful weather in the local square. For dinner we went back to the local pizza place and did a repeat of Friday’s dinner (without the dessert).
2 responses to “Exploring Getxo”
PIPA NO! That is how we will greet you when we see you next. Perfection. Where was the landscape photo of the bay taken (the one above the pizzas)? I can’t tell if it is sunrise or sunset but it’s lovely.
What does the the cola mean in ColaCao? Obviously not what I think it means. Regardless , glad Mike got his preferred dessert.
Happy belated St. Patrick’s Day!
Love it! The photo was taken at the end of the street we lived on. Just right outside our apartment. If you go to Googlemaps and put in Getxo Spain and then put in Artagan Kalea, you’ll see the street and the picture is from that end overlooking the bay. And it is sunset – I don’t know if or when I’ll be up at sunrise – I guess Sandy may be. I’m not sure about the name Cola Cao, but I think it is related to the word cola and its connection to the cola nut, which apparently is full of caffeine and results in high energy – it’s probably where coca cola and pepsi cola picked that up from also. And “cao” sounds similar to cacao or cocoa to me, so I’m going with that. I had to do some research though to even get that far. 🙂