Idiazabal: walking the cider & cheese trail

Our bus driver from Bilbao is fearless: she slips through narrow medieval village streets and switchbacks over steep passes without hesitation. We land at last in Beasain, a factory town where our friend Steve teaches, and he picks us up in time to watch his sons Jon & Benat finish soccer practice, then we wind up to their village of Idiazabal. In Basque country houses have names and last hundreds of years -- we are visiting Buztindegi, where Steve's wife Axun Aldonando's family has lived forever.  Over dinner with her brother and the boys the conversation is a cheerful mix of English, Basque, and Spanish. Steve & Axun live in her aunt's house across the field -- the moon lights our way to bed. The next afternoon they lead us on a long walk over the hills to visit another uncle's house where grape vines grow up the walls, and then we climb to the ancient walled town of Segura, where signs in Basque explain how people lived 1000 years ago. Over the doors are pinned  sunflower thistels, and that same Basque sun symbol of health and protection is etched in the old stone, and in the cheese mold in the museum. Sheep (the source of the cheese) are everywhere on the green hills above us. We're headed for a cider house on the road to Zerain, and we pass a branch of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route. We joke that we are on the Camino de Sidra - the Trail of Cider. The cider house is a well-restored stone structure above the orchard, framed by a traditional pointed hay stack and the peak of Txindoki mountain across the valley of Idiazabal. Our host at the cider house graciously teaches us how to catch the stream of cider arcing from the barrel so that it foams like champagne -- better flavor and the alcohol goes straight to you brain! Ancient Basque sailors were famous for never getting scurvy, so they could go to sea for months to hunt whales or fish off the Grand Banks of that continent to the west that Columbus would later "discover". Instead of water they carried casks of cider, rich in vitamin C and B vitamins. As he explains this our 70-year old host draws another glass, "for his health". 
The full moon shines on Txidoki as we leave. This morning our heads are a little thick from much cider and laughter, but we'll walk it off on the road to the Idiazabal village cheese museum. Tomorrow Axun and Steve will drive us over the Pyrenees to France, to Saint Jean Pied de Port, where we'll begin our Camino de Santiago walk.

Morning and evening in old Bilbao

Bilbao is ancient and modern. Here where the river Nervion winds out of the mountains to the sea, we wake and wander narrow streets past buildings that were old when Christoforo Columbus found Basque metal smiths to forge the fittings for his ships, and Basque sailors to guide him across the ocean they knew so well. A tiny electric truck slips between stone walls to pick up the night's recycling. We cross the river on a stone bridge and stroll the broad promenade between water and bike path/tramway to where Frank Gehry found modern Basque metallurgists capable of building his vision of a curvilinear Guggenheim Museum. Residents love the 50-foot high flower-clad puppy that guards the entrance. Lost again in the "new" town where stone and steel mingle, we descend through glass and curved tunnels to ride the Metro, zipping smoothly under the river and out to the old port. From the basilica we wind down stone and flower-filled streets to cross the hanging bridge, built in the 1800's to ferry train cars across but allow ship's masts to pass under. We walk past old palaces and pristine public beaches, looking across at the shipyards. Here in the industrial heart of Basque country the water is clean and the city air smells only of sea salt and flowers. Out the door of the tavern where we stop for wine and pinxtos (Basque tapas) giant wind turbines stand across the harbor on the breakwall, where the wind blows in eternally from Greenland. We wind up stone steps through the fisherman's white houses and then drop again down curving escalators to glide back on the Metro, emerging into the ancient old town (Casco Viejo) where we wander lost through tiny plazas of laughing people starting their evening stroll for pintxos and wine. We join them. The menu in our bar is only in Basque, but the dueno is happy to interpret, and an older couple to describe the mountains we'll encounter further south in Navarre. By luck we eventually wander upon our street, Calle Jardines, and across from our hotel encounter (in a city of 350,000) the retired teachers from Valencia that we met on the bus in from the airport. He laughs and says "Of course! El mundo es un panillo!" (the world is a small round loaf of bread, where we will meet and eat together). And in Bilbao, where the ancient past meets the future, and they laugh and walk out for wine and pintxos.

ice cream for breakfast

Our last morning home we sit under  the apple trees eating ice cream (clear the fridge!) watching the first poppy and iris blossoms unfurl to the spring sun. Away we go!

Welcome family and friends!

Welcome to our spring 2016 Spain & Italy travel blog.  We're off to the Basque region of northern Spain, starting out with our good friends Steve and Axun and their boys Jon and Beñat. (Here's a photo from their visit to Seattle in 2013).  Then we'll be walking part of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route through small towns and countryside across northern Spain, ending (we hope) at Finisterre - the medieval "end of the earth" in NW Spain.  

We'll be visiting Llanes, a town on the north coast where Jen's Uncle Roho (Rogelio Llerandi) was born.  Roho's family became refugees during the Spanish civil war, escaping to France.  He came to the US with 40 other refugee children, and became the adopted brother of Jen's dad Bill.  (Here's a photo of their first Christmas together in 1942 in Madison Wisconsin, and another photo about 40 years later in front of the Page family home.)  We hope to find Roho's family home in Llanes and experience his native land.

Later in our travels we'll move on to northern Italy, with time walking on the Cinque Terre coast before Jen meets up with friends for two weeks travel around the Casentino valley in northern Tuscany (while Dave goes off hiking in the mountains).  Then we'll have a few more days together before we return to the US.

You can follow our travels here - if you're viewing on a mobile device please scroll to the bottom and select “view web version" to see the map at top.  Enjoy!