3am alarm, 4am taxi and a 5am blurry trip through passport control. Then it’s time to relax with a coffee and a cheese toastie. It’s going to be a long, tiring day at the start of a long, tiring week, but the excitement is brilliant and as usual I’m like a kid in a sweetshop.

The Camino de Santiago de Compostela has been on the to do list and at the start of 2023 after a few COVID induced years of relative inactivity, we decided to make it happen. When I lived in Spain, my Spanish family, especially Mariano and Ricardo often talked about how beautiful the northern coast is. So here was the perfect chance to check out the Basque County and Cantabria and face the challenge of walking some of the northern route of the Camino. Doing the whole route takes about 5 weeks and is 820km long, so we chose the Bilbao to Santander section, partly through ease of access from the UK for us and for Philippe and Francesca from France and because of the very positive reviews of this section.

The first impressions of the descent into Bilbao were ‘wow this is green’. This is Mariano and Ricardo how described and how incredibly different it is from Madrid.

The success and enjoyment of this adventure was to take things as they come (you may have to be flexible and change plans), understand that not everything is going to go to plan (it definitely won’t and it didn’t) and you have to prepare well. Prepare, prepare and prepare a bit more. It became pretty evident that Philippe and Francesca had prepared much better than we had. However, Nick and I had a great guide book that split the route into bit size pieces and gave alternative routes if you were low on time. The perfect companion for the unprepared pilgrim. Sadly it didn’t come with us because I left it on the coffee table. Time to blag it, sound confident and hope that the route is well sign posted.

The plan was for the 4 of us to meet up near the cathedral in Bilbao and finish at the cathedral in Santander. The bus stop to the city centre right outside the airport arrivals area and we left about 10 minutes later. Everything was going so well, but the bus stopped well before our destination. It was the 1st of May. Unlike in the UK where it’s just another excuse for those fortunate enough not to work in retail or hospitality not to work, in the Basque Country it definitely is Workers Day. We were communist style posters everywhere. Each square had banners championing workers’ rights and PA systems set up for the speakers later in the day. The main bridge through the city was blocked with protesters and stages with speakers so militant they made Scargill sound like Thatcher. Finally we met.

You soon reach the Guigenheim Museum, the Spider statue and the big puppy statue made of flowers. All 3 are very impressive and however famous And beautiful the Guigenheim is, my favourite is the dog. It’s massive and home to so many insects and birds. Why can’t every city have something like this? It can’t be that hard surely?

The riverside route to Portugalete is littered with old derelict industrial buildings and a lot of graffiti.

They do like their tagging in Spain. The journey is pretty slow and hot but we finally made it to Portugalete for the end of day 1.

And after a lovely coffee and found the first camino sign to follow. It was only a 10 mile walk on day 1. Easy. Well maybe on a normal day, but we had already been up for 8 hours and we were carrying our homes on our backs.

From the Cathedral we headed to the river that flows through the city. It’s pretty hard not to fall in love with
Bilbao. Very walker/cyclist friendly. Wide tree lined streets to keep you cool in the summer.

A tram system that runs on tracks that are surrounded by stretches of grass covered in daisies. And it’s really
clean.

Reluctantly moving on, we head away from the city towards Portugalete, where we would spend thenight. Now given that this is a pilgrimage, you would be forgiven for thinking that it’s going to bebeautiful for the whole journey. If that’s what you’re expecting, you’re going to be disappointed.

Since the pilgrims started their journey to Santiago via the various routes from different starting points in several countries, man has made his mark and this is particularly evident for the next miles or so.