Miranda de Ebro to Amurrio

May 24, 2025

Last night we had an excellent dinner but with some random elements. I had booked a table for 9 pm at Carbon, which is the hotel restaurant. When we arrived the host escorted us to our table, which turned out to involve walking through the entire hotel, through several conference rooms and into the back alley and to a rail car that was parked there. It wasn’t too convenient when I had to run back to our room to put on an extra a layer! But we both got a cocktail - something that has not been on offer in wine-crazy Rioja so it was a good change of pace.

We had a leisurely meal and as Dave noted, we rarely get out of a dining room in less than two hours. We were too tired to watch a movie even though Dave figured out the Smart tv with which we could have watched Netflix. These late dinners mean we go to bed with our food half -digested.

At breakfast this morning we met another couple at the next table. The man was from Boulder, Co, and he made some random comment about weather in Denver. Dave’s ears perked up and of course a conversation ensued. They were a husband and wife team who work in the nuclear energy industry, based out of Boulder, but they travel all over the world and spend large chunks of time in one place. They were staying at our Sercotel Hotel for three weeks (we liked the hotel - but not that much!) We were having a good conversation until the wife mentioned she liked the current administration; I strategically wandered off to refill my teacup so as to preclude saying anything rude.

Later, when they left we talked about this, Dave said that their comments weren't necessarily political. They like Trump because he wants to build nuclear power plants and that’s their business. We also acknowledged to each other that we need more ways to connect with folks we don't agree with - and in fact we had an excellent conversation about travel and the local laundromat - as the woman was off to do laundry and Dave had an inside track having just done ours the previous day.

We managed departure at 11:01 am and it was a beautiful day. Exit from Miranda was easy.

The ride today was heading north to climb Orduña Pass, ride through the town of Orduña, and then to our country hotel outside Amurrio. The climbing was in the second half of the day.

We were on heavily trafficked roads all day and for the first 21 km it was constant and required some focus. There were no shoulders and the traffic moved fast. When we split off to the road the leads up to Orduña the traffic lessened. The town of Berberana lies at the foot of the climb (on the south side of the pass) and we pulled over there at a bus stop bench and split our small ham sandwich and the Pringles Chips that were complementary in our room fridge.

The climb from the south is somewhat mundane relative to climbing it from the north. From the south it was a steady 300m climb over 5 km, with a few steep pitches (10 percent). The climbing from the south also doesn't have any cool views until the summit. So, the ride was a bit ho-hum, until we reached the top and saw the view looking down over the other side. We stopped and gawked and had a nice visit with two guys on motorcycles and then a mother-son duo originally from Germany, but now the son now lives in Australia. He was over in Spain on business and his mom flew out from Germany to see him, which we thought was cool.

I was apprehensive about the descent because it was steep and the traffic was pretty aggressive.

However, there were so many hairpin turns forcing the traffic to slow down and I enjoyed the descending. Views were stunning. It brought back many memories of my previous ride 20 years ago over Orduña Pass from the north side - and Dave was suitably impressed when he saw how long and steep it was.

At the bottom we stripped off a layer and then anticipated a smooth, mostly low-key downhill ride to our hotel 10 km away. The best laid plans…..

Orduña was busy with Spaniards hanging out doing their Saturday afternoon socializing, and I heard a clunking noise from Dave’s bike. It looked like there was something stuck in his rear wheel. I yelled at him and he had heard it and me and was immediately able to stop and pull over just outside the center of Orduña.

His bungee cord had been attached to his back rack - a new location this year - and it was placed so that it would be handy to help stabilize the bikes when we are on a train. The cord had come loose and became tangled in his back wheel. “Tangle” is a mellow description for the sucker that was now wrapped around the rear axel. Initially Dave thought he could just pull it out - but THEN wound up unloading the panniers, tried again unsuccessfully, THEN took out the battery and turned the bike upside down and tried again, unsuccessfully. He THEN wound up moving the bike and all our gear across the street to a shady driveway and detached the rear wheel. We THEN searched for a scissor or something sharp to try to cut it out. At this point we are half an hour into this little drama, and I am thinking we may need a bike store. Being Saturday afternoon nothing is open until Monday, but there wasn’t much in Orduña in any event. I mentally started to contemplate options: a taxi to Bilbao 50 km away? Yikes.

Dave was unable to locate our corkscrew that has a small knife for cutting the foils on wine bottles, but he had a small scissor in his personal kit that finally did the trick. Thank heavens he likes to pack everything including the kitchen sink (which I occasionally mock him for but which served us well in this instance). Once we had the scissor going we managed to cut away the bungee cord in 4 or 5 places and Dave remounted the rear wheel.

(Dave here: I would be remiss in failing to properly credit Jill's coolness under fire during this fiasco. I'm was pretty stressed and shaken from this mishap. I shudder to think what might have happened if it had occurred during the steep descent. Consequently, I wasn't thinking too clearly. It was Jill who suggested moving over to the shade. It was she who suggested flipping the bike over and then removing the rear wheel. And it was she who remembered I had scissors in my personal kit. We are a team! 💪)

We then enjoyed a leisurely ride to Hotel Saiartz in the very small village of San Rose, just 3 km north of Amurrio. This place is totally in the country and you would never find it by simply driving by.

No. Our hotel is not the container in the foreground 😎

However, it actually is a pretty charming and modern little hotel with a cute deck, new room and air conditioning. (I have to say after complaining about a/c in Europe for the last three tours we have been pleasantly surprised in Spain. My previous experience is that a/c is uncommon, and even when hotels advertise it, it doesn’t work half the time or they control it centrally, or whatever. We have not had that experience in the last month at all. However, we will shortly be on our way to the British Isles and then the issue will take a nose dive: I could find only a very few places that advertised having a/c).

The Hotel, called Saiairitz, is about 3 km north of Amurrio. I found it on booking.com which did me a great service as we were struggling with finding any kind of hotel in the general vicinity. Located about a block away from the hotel is their restaurant, Ruperto’s. When we arrived the restaurant was hopping at 4 pm with Saturday afternoon diners and they had a nice outside patio as well.

Ruperto's patio during a more quiet time.

We cleaned up and took a stroll around the neighborhood.

They had told us dinner was served from 8 to 9:30 and we figured out that this is just something they offer to hotel guests; it was just us and one other duo at the next table in a large dining room. Our server Idatxe made it fun. After dinner she came over to visit with us and we learned that she and her brother (and maybe other family members?) own and run the hotel and restaurant. Her two children are Saia and Ritz, hence the name of the hotel, Hotel SaiaRitz.

Her name Idatxe, is Basque and means fern or grass. She said there are a number of Basque dialects and officially they have been “merged” into one official dialect so spellings have been modified a bit.

We had a casual but fine meal and she picked out our wine from a local producer who is a long time friend of the family.

This proved to be a lovely crianza and cost us only €16, not to mention the cool story behind it.

She said the owner’s grandfather and her grandfather fought in the Spanish Civil War together (1936-1939). She said they have remained close family friends all these years. Her grandfather said the war was horrible and they didn’t have much choice on which side they fought. Their options were to fight or be killed. I know from my own reading that the Basque region primarily supported the Republican side and were treated horribly by Franco’s winning forces. The bombing of Guernica - memorialized in Picasso’s Guernica painting - is the most famous depiction of the conflict in this region. The next morning when we were down for breakfast she brought over two tee-shirts for us - and she said if we don’t like wearing them we can use them to wash widows!

Why we tour….

Today's ride: 55 km (34 miles)
Total: 974 km (605 miles)

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