Remembering how lovely the way into Bilbao was on the train during our last sojourn there we headed west to keep the hills alive with the sound of music. On a grande loupe we went west through Guenes, then Balmaseda, the oldest town in the Basque country @ 800 years. It looked much like the casca viejo in Bilbao which is a mere youth of 700 years vintage. The hills and dales were green and I kept repeating that it looked much like Oregon. Pine forests rather than the fir and hemlock of the western Cascades but did I say that it looked a lot like Oregon? Northern California also.

On we went, north to the coast through Sopuerta and Muskiz and various other small villages. Through Las Arenas where we were surprised to find a huge petroleum plant right on the sea.

We stopped for lunch in a bistro overlooking a new staging area for ships entering the Bilbao harbor. The sea wall is enormous. Just how enormous we discover as at the next table is the project engineer. At 22 meters high and 3 1/2 kilometers long, ships coming into the harbor are almost invisible beyond it. With the exception of one container ship that is the largest thing we have ever seen afloat and which towers above the tankers and other cargo vessels we see arriving.

After a leisurely 2 hour lunch, watching our neighbors really take the business lunch to heart, we watched them consume huge crabs as an appetizer (the empty bodies of which they afterwards filled with wine and drank as if from a bowl), then squid in it’s own ink, of which they complained it was too large a portion, a desert course, a bottle of wine and a couple of scotches, here called just whiskey, at a leisurely pace with a couple of Cuban cigars, here we were wondering who was popping for la comida, perhaps the one who got the neck and sholder massage from the lovely hostess, we drove off to continue on our way across Bilbao by freeway once again and onward and upward with the arts. (Don’t you just love run on sentences with lots of commas in confusing places? I sure do, but you knew that now didn’t you?)

Through Gexto, Sopelana, Barrika and Plenzia we went, where I almost killed an expletive spewing youth on a hard breaking Vespa. Pulling over and taking a breather and thanking the deities to which we pray for the near miss, we then pushed on and were soon out of suburbia and into the Spanish countryside overlooking the sea once more. Arminz, twisted cliff top road to Zubiaur and to Bakio and shortly we were at an almost completed nuclear plant, complete with power lines disappearing over the hills that was finally halted in construction after long protest by the Basque people with the assassination of 2 of it’s directors by the Basque separatist group ETA.

What a great story we thought, power to the people indeed!

Between San Pelaio and Arana we found the small, small island of Aketx connected by a steep footbridge of some 200 plus steps to the mainland and upon which is perched the Hermitage of San Juan de Gaztelugatxe.

We drove to the bottom of the bluff and parking our auto we ascended the stairs to wonder at living here in the 12th century when it was built. I’m sure there was no paved road from Bilbao. Indeed there was no Bilbao. This was a remote area indeed in which to be a hermit monk clinging to the top of a small island. I’m sure they were in touch with god but I for one am happy to turn the radio on to do so and have a car in which to mount it.

Passing through Bermeo we find ourselves once again in Mundaka where we had trained the day before. We take a room directly on the port at Hotel El Puerto, a lovely, charming and hospitable establishment, which we highly recommend.

Porto Kalea #1
48360 Mundaka (Bizkaia).
Phone 946 876 725
fax 946 876 726

A letter painting I sent myself

After arriving at 8 PM we are happy to take the only room they have available and the next day arrange to move into one on the corner of the building overlooking the port and the ria and hills beyond.

The Ria de Mundaka

Here we spend 3 nights and days of indolence. There is little to do here but stroll the quays and village streets, eat, sleep, sketch and siesta. A little R&R taken by R&R. Our hostess is muy simpatico and is named what sounds out like Karuth with a hard K and a long H.

Rosemary drawing on the balcony of our room

The Finished Image

*****

While here we are shocked and appalled as we watch over and over and over the scenes being played out during the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and wondering what the consequences will be and about mans inhumanity to man. Rosemary dreams of explosions falling from buildings. It is macabre that I find it so fascinating to repeatedly watch the scenes of destruction, so much like a bad Hollywood movie. I am saddened that I feel a need for retribution, the need to continue our barbarism as a civilization. It is difficult to stay in tourist mode, yet here we are and onward we must go.

*****

As a day trip we drive east on the coast up and down the Ria de Mundaka and go again through Guernika, site of previous barbarism by humankind and on to Kanala, Atxerreko and Elantchobe, a postcard perfect, spilling down the hillside fishing village and port. On through Ibarrangeela, Ea and Ispaster to Lekeitio, another fishing village of a slightly larger size where we park and soak up it’s beauty while strolling quay side and admiring it’s beaches, the island at the mouth of the harbor, it’s church and it’s food.