May 25, 2025 to May 31, 2025
A week in the Basque Country with Friends
Dear Readers: So sorry for going silent for a week but we had valid reasons. We have spent the last week off the bikes toggling back and forth between Bilbao and San Sebastián with nine of Dave’s former colleagues from Microsoft.
It has been a week of the good, the bad, the ugly…..
The good (and it’s very good): We enjoyed enduring friendships, two great cities, great wine and food, and wonderful accommodations. So, in that order:
(1) Good No. 1: We celebrated enduring friendships.
It was a bit miraculous that we all managed to pull off an international trip. Dave and I first started socializing the idea with this particular friend group over a year ago but of course it was difficult because we didn’t have a set plan or agenda for our own trip, just a desire to have friends/family join us in Europe. Many different ideas were floated around - Ireland, London, Northern Spain, but no idea got legs until Scott and Diane advised they were planning to travel to Africa in late May. They would commit to joining us anywhere in Europe the week before, which had a hidden benefit for them of breaking up a very long trip. I looked at the map and calculated what big city Dave and I could get to that week, and it was Bilbao! Once Scott and Diane were on board others quickly committed to the adventure. The trip morphed into two nights in Bilbao and three in San Sebastián. That was pretty comfortable for our planning as Dave and I had been to both these cities in the past.
These friends all worked together in Microsoft's Denver office back in the nineties and the experience forged a bond that remained unbroken through many challenges and changes. Most went on to different jobs, transferred to different offices, retired (early and late), but through all of this they have stayed close friends. This week being together was a great way to celebrate that friendship.
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(2) Good No. 2: Bilbao and San Sebastián really showed off.
Both cities looked great this week, aided by perfect weather and tolerable early season crowds.
In Bilbao we explored the city on an e-bike tour and gained an excellent shorthand history of the city. Bilbao was an industrial town that prospered in the 1800s due to support from Britain in developing nearby iron ore mining. This allowed the construction of beautiful buildings in the city but also created a highly polluted river. Bilbao and the Basque region suffered under Franco (it had been a Republican stronghold during the Spanish Civil War) and was down on its luck until the town's leadership managed to lure the Guggenheim Foundation to build a Gehry-designed Museum in the city in 1992. That single act (initially unpopular with the locals) was the impetus for a magnificent transformation of the city. Since the opening of the Guggenheim, the river has been cleaned up, industry was moved out of town, tourism became popular, and a general air of prosperity reigns. A good story. We also learned all about the local football team (delightedly discussed by our guide Oscar) and visited the stadium as part of the bike tour.
Of course, we also visited the Guggenheim. Diana, a member of our team, arranged a private tour and our guide was an art historian originally from central Scotland. To us, however, the art was secondary to the amazing building.
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Our favorite part of the Guggenheim is Jeff Koon’s Puppy . We stayed across the street at the Artist’s Hotel and we had a great view of Puppy out our window, which made us smile every time we looked at him. His flowers are replenished twice per year and as it was just done three weeks ago, he looked particularly spiffy.
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2 weeks ago
On the third day we transferred to San Sebastián (an hour and 15 minutes). Dave and I left our bikes in Bilbao (More on that subject later.)
In San Sebastián we had a signature event. One of our group, Lee, organized a sailing adventure on a historical sailboat, the Lucrezia (built in 1927). The weather was ideal and our captain and his crew sailed us down the coast to the town of Pasai Donabane, a town hidden in a small harbor more or less unseen from the coast. The entrance to the harbor was so obscured that many sailors over the years have missed the entrance. We enjoyed a picnic on the boat. It was a great way to hang out with the group and our captain was full of interesting little factoids about San Sebastián - which has had a historical rivalry with Bilbao.
San Sebastián became a famous seaside retreat a hundred years ago when Queen Maria Christina began visiting hence resulting in many visits of Spanish and other royalty. It was compared to Biarritz just up the coast in France. During the Spanish Civil War, San Sebastián supported Franco (being full of owners of factories - rather than workers at factories) and Franco sent the city a Statute of Jesus as a gift of thanks, now predominantly displayed on Mt. Urgull.
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Dave and I are not beach people but this is a gorgeous town with a gorgeous shell-shaped beach.
If I had to live in a beach town, this would make my short list!
(3) Good No. 3: Great food and wine, as usual.
We had some varied and signature dinners both in Bilbao and San Sebastián, ranging from classic Basque cuisine of bar hopping for pinxtos and wine. One night in San Sebastián we ate at the Cafe Saigon, a welcome change of pace. Spanish and Basque food is wonderful but I am ready for a change. (We are heading for Ireland. Fish and chips? The full Irish? Mushy peas? Hmmm).
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(4) Good No. 4: Fantastic accommodations.
Our habit is to drop our usual budgetary constraints when we are with others and we did so this week, with a vengeance. We stayed at the Artist’s hotel in Bilbao and the view out of our room of the Guggenheim was stellar.
In San Sebastián we stayed at the famous Hotel Maria Christina, named for the princess that made the town a famous tourist destination.
The breakfast we had every morning there was the best breakfast buffet we have ever had, and we have had many great ones.
So now on to the Bad (but also humorous): bike drama, laundry drama, and elevator drama.
(1)Bad No. 1: Bike drama.
The Bosch motor on my bike started to act up a week ago. An attempt to use the walk-assist function (used only occasionally but critical in certain circumstances) shut the screen off on my head unit. It came on again but then the head unit consistently was flashing on and off through the week. It did not seem to impair the functionality of the battery but we worried it was a foretaste of a more major malfunction to come. We are going to Ireland next week and it worried us to move to a less cycle-centric country with this issue unresolved. Therefore, in Bilbao we decided it was a good time to try to find a bike store/mechanic to take a look. This of course is challenging - especially now with e-bikes. There was no authorized KTM dealership in Bilbao. I did some google research and found a place that I thought looked good: Motor Verde, chosen primarily because there were a couple of reviews reporting from tourers whole stopped in with emergencies and had received positive help. In addition, the same google entry showed a picture of a Bosch head unit just like mine. However, our belief that this was the best place to try was muddied when the guys running our e-bike tour said that Motor Verde was more of a bike sales place and he recommended two other shops, which were inevitably located on the other side of town! The difficulty was that I could not see that these places dealt with e-bikes and Bosch motors. So, at the opening of the Spanish afternoon business hour Dave and I ventured out expecting this to be a process with the possibility of having to visit several bike stores. Motor Verde proved to be the cat’s meow but it was far from obvious when we entered. They had two people working there - Anna at the front desk and Pablo in the service department, and they had no other customers for the hour we were there. Communication was predominantly through Google translate with the usual complement of hand waving, vigorous nodding and pointing that occurs when parties don't share a language. Pablo had a few words of English but unfortunately the first word he spoke after he fiddled with my Bosch head unit was “complicado’. That is never a good sign. After checking the wires, he took the bike back into the service room and started doing a programming run on the unit. Dave and I looked at each other and whispered to each other, "This is going nowhere fast." But, we spoke too soon! Pablo ultimately came back with a diagnosis. He said that we needed a new head unit and they didn't have one BUT - never fear - they had a used one. Bingo! We were pretty content in getting a new head unit in any event as mine is cracked and we worried that eventually water will seep in. We were advised the cost would be 90 euros for the used unit. While we were there we discussed having the bikes serviced. We had planned to do this in Glasgow in another month but Dave believed we needed new tires and it would make sense if we could get this stuff done while we were standing in a bike store with someone that wanted to help us! Pablo wasn’t sure he could get the tires but he messaged Dave later that day with a price and availability.
The good news about all this was we asked to pick the bikes up the following Saturday (this was happening on a Tuesday). In this way we skinned a second cat: we needed to leave our bikes in Bilbao for a few days while we spent time in San Sebastián with our group. The Artist’s Hotel in Bilbao was going to charge us 25 euros a night for parking our bikes in their garage, so we avoided that issue all together. All in all, a very positive cycle touring experience.
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FYI: I tell this story like there was a logical linear progression in communication at the bike shop. I can assure there was not. It was a lot of stop and start, but we got there in the end.
Update on the Bike: On Saturday our van driver from San Sebastián kindly made an extra stop and dropped us off at Motoverde at 11:30 for the highly anticipated bicycle pickup. It was Gabriel (I believe) instead of Pablo that day but Anna was there. They immediately wheeled out our bikes and they were so clean we could barely believe it! In addition, Gabriel proudly informed us that after doing some more work on my head unit they decided it didn’t need to be replaced. It seems the only reason it was malfunctioning was our failure to charge the head unit's internal battery. In our defense, the head unit battery is supposed recharge itself when you ride off the big battery. So, we saved 90 euros - Gabriel was so proud of their discovery that it didn’t seem kind to point out we would love to replace the head unit in any event due to the crack! So, that little task will be reserved for another fun adventure in a bike store in the future.
Anna, who worked the front of the store, endeared herself to me when I went to shop for a pair of cycling shorts (see laundry drama story directly below). All they had in stock was a couple of pairs of XS and S sizes; she couldn’t believe I needed a Medium but I assured her after all the eating we have done this week I will be lucky to fit in a medium! Gabriel sent us down the street to the Decathlon store and I found a plain black pair for 20 euros. If we hadn’t found those our plan B was that I would wear Dave’s backup pair of liners.
(2) Bad No. 2: Laundry Drama.
It’s been a pretty quiet tour for laundry stories, but we did have a drama in the Bibao Ecolaundry, and my bikes shorts (the one and only pair I have) became the victim. The drier had four settings for heat - and Dave selected “nuclear" and the heat melted my cycling shorts, rendering them useless.
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1 week ago
He later reported he thought these shorts were overdue for a replacement (describing them as “bloomers with the elastic failing”) and I do admit it’s the fourth tour for these puppies. I think he fried them deliberately to force me to go shopping. (He vigorously denies this).
(3) Bad No. 3: Elevator Drama ensues
On the day we did the sailing trip we disembarked at 3 pm looking for a cerveza. Our group, being fussy, wanted to find the best rooftop bar, and there happened to be one just off the beach at the La Jarayana hotel. We committed a faux pas by thinking we could just catch the lift to the top (Planta 7). It turns out the rooftop bar is reserved for guests unless the lobby bartender says it’s okay for non-guests to go. After 9 of us piled into an eight- person lift we learned we could not get off on 7 so we rode back down and a security guard kindly explained the rules. We sent Scott, our nicest, most respectable-looking American to plead with the lobby bartender to allow our entrance. He in turn reported he would have to check with the 7th floor bartender and after an extensive conversation he duly allowed us to pile into the lift again and used his special seventh floor key fob to send us up. All was well - we expected to have that cerveza on a rooftop soon.
The elevator gods were not with us that day. The elevator had a posted limit of 8 passengers and we were 9. Pshaw: just a few minutes earlier we had all crammed into this elevator, having ridden it just a few minutes ago. We all clambered in, the bartender used his key and selected the top floor for us. The lift door would not fully close and we immediately assumed the issue was the unlawful ninth person, so one of our group hopped out, but the door would not fully close even then, so another hopped off- and then another -and then another. Finally there was only five of us in the elevator. And, finally the elevator closed. But now it refused to move and the door was stuck mostly closed and would not reopen.
We were stuck in the elevator. More bad news: it gets very warm in an elevator very quickly. The good news: four of our friends were in the elevator lobby now and they knew we were stuck so at least we didn't feel deserted.
We tried a number of tricks, including pressing various buttons and emergency toggles. Diane tried a strength maneuver she uses at home to open a horse stall door to no avail. And in the lobby we were confident our friends were working with hotel staff, calling the police, or doing whatever was necessary, to get us out of this fix. (After we were eventually released, our confidence in our friendships were somewhat dented when we learned that Lee had immediately gone into the lobby bar to order beers for those not trapped in the elevator!)
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Finally The Ugly: What is it about Knees?
The good news: My knee is doing better. After that day last week where I gave you all a pretty good whine fest about my knee, it started to feel better, and by the time I got to Bilbao last week I was feeling confident enough to bar hop with the group.
But, when we arrived in Bilbao, Dave’s knee, which had been doing fine for the last 5 weeks, suddenly took a nasty turn for the worse. At first his whole right leg felt tight and we wondered if our failure to keep stretching daily was the culprit. That encouraged us to behave and we immediately began using the fine gyms in both the Artist’s Hotel in Bilbao and the Maria Christina in San Sebastián to stretch and work out. The steam room was helpful too. That provided some relief but not completely and he has been limping around Bilbao and San Sebastián for the past week. We engaged in a bit of self-diagnosis as we were hanging around 9 other smart people, many of whom have all had the usual knee and hip aches and pains. Dave’s thinking was that he developed a Baker’s cyst, which is a buildup of fluid behind the knee as a result of trauma or injury. There is not much to do about them and exercise is generally encouraged so he continued to walk around both cities, although more gingerly than usual. We had a few days where we seriously discussed our planned route and looked at some Plan B ideas. We were due to board a ferry to Ireland and then ride across the southern coast of Ireland (more or less) to meet a friend in Dingle. Most of our route was pretty much off the beaten track and we wondered whether we should stick closer to Dublin. Our decision was to board the ferry and see how it goes.
I am sure there will be more on this later!
Today's ride: 35 km (22 miles)
Total: 1,009 km (627 miles)
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2 weeks ago
We really liked Donostia and Bibao. Bilbao presented as a city that had its act together with beautiful parks filled with locals, clean streets and sidewalks, families enjoying the Old Town, and the worship of wine (Txakolina).
Hope the knee is getting better.
About the Guggenheim: I have to agree. Despite the magnificent exterior and all the good it has done for redevelopment of Bilbao. . . the inside. . . .? A huge room filled with metal work that is neither as impressive as the metal exterior nor a corn maze in Central Illinois? A huge room with about 5 big works of art, which we've kinda seen before (another Warhol Marilyn). I would nominate the Guggenheim Bilbao for the title of worst museum in Europe.
The adventure continues for you two. . . .
1 week ago