It's Peel island on Coniston by the way.
One of the first things I did when we arrived in Spain was to seek out a place to purchase Spanish charts of the coast, they are remarkably similar to Admiralty charts. Álvaro says it's because the Spanish were first and we copied them. That may be true I don't know.
We also like to have a local map for walking, usually at a reasonably large scale say 1:25,000. So on a day which promised to be a little cloudy we took a trip into Bilbao to seek one out as we had had no luck at all in Las Arenas ( Getxo )
We got off the metro near the old quarter and visited the Tourist Information office which is housed in a fabulous building near the railway station. We were given some nice guides to walks around Bilbao and were told of some other walks along the coast .We then set off to explore again the old quarter thinking that somewhere in its warren of little shops would be s biblio or bookshop with a stack of maps to peruse.
Now the old quarter is definately a place you need a map! It's a sometimes confusing but endlessly fascinating jumble of small streets. Full of cafes restaurants and shops. People also live there and the evidence is there to see if you look up. I think the brolly covering the washing is a great idea. I may try something similar on Dark Tarn.
But no bookshops selling maps could be found.
I had had my initial visit to the dentist that morning and the anaesthesia was beginning to wear off along with a growing hunger, we decided on a late lunch. Well late for us but well within the 1-5pm Spanish lunchtime......
As we eat our starters, veal stuffed eggplant for me and a goats cheese salad for Lynne, I was pondering the map question. Just where do you get a decent map in Spain? How do they know where they are and what's around them? It was a mystery alright, but one that could wait until we had eaten our main course, sea bass for me and oxtail for Lynne followed by a sweet of Mille-fuille with a hot chocolate sauce. A bottle of the local Rioja wine and we were full to bursting, we had a stroll back to tourist information to walk it off and enquire after the map conundrum. We were given the location of several large bookshops so ventured forth city map in hand ( free of course from tourist info ) we had a great time exploring yet more of this great city but the bookshops proved a disappointment. Not a map to be found at a scale smaller than a roadmap. We headed back to Getxo after a little shopping ( Lynne actually found a charity shop ) and pondered again the map mystery in a small bar being too full from lunch to eat anything else.
The following day we thought that we would walk past the old fishing port and out to the disused lighthouse, the location of the coast walk we had been told about and on the way, see if we could find the skatepark we had been told was located at the next beach. Initially this meant climbing the steep streets out of the old port and the cafeteria Usategui at the top of the hill looked a very good place to stop for refreshment.
I think this is my " I'm posing for a picture pose" however the views from the cafe are tremendous.
The balcony does however have a slight but perceptible slope downwards.
Towards what we thought may be the continuation path below ( several people walked up it) but having no map we couldn't be sure so fortified with a small beer we walked down the obvious steps to explore, the drop down to the sea was appallingly steep!
We decided this probably wasn't it....
The return to the safety of the cafe was accompanied by some black looks for me from Lynne. We continued on using basic principles, (keep the sea on the left) and after several diversions, presumably where the path had fallen into the sea came upon the beach and skatepark we had been trying to reach.
We rang Alex to tell him the news but in the way of these things he was busy skateboarding.......
The path now seemed to climb towards the windmill on the cliff and we duly ascended to the cliff top and had a welcome ice cream. The path was now paved and very wide, also full of people.
The time was about 6.30, the normal time for a promenade before dinner, normally around 8 or 9 we had discovered. So didn't think a lot of it. We continued to the disused lighthouse thinking that would probably be the end of the paved section, but no, it continued.
We carried on into the evening, the views along the coast were stunning.
We had about 2hours before dark so having consulted my iPad and google maps decided we could probably make the town of Larrabasterra and return on the Metro, of course this was assuming the paved road went that far. We took a gamble and carried on, we were glad we did.
The coast was beautiful.
The path continued to be well used by walkers and cyclists and we began to realise why no one seemed to need maps. This was what constitutes a walk.
It was a bit different from what we were used to in the West pennine moors or the Lake District however given the erosion problems maybe not such a bad idea for the popular paths?
As the sun began to set we arrived at the beaches near Sopela,
they are famous surfing beaches and a surfing championship is due to be held there in October. It has a beach bum kind of feel with some interesting bars.
However we were chasing the sun and had no time to linger.
A mile or two later saw us inland at Larrabasterra and the welcome Metro station to take us back to Getxo.
We had a fascinating and surprising coast walk, one we will undoubtably make time to do again. It hadnt quite solved the mystery as far as maps go but it explained something about the different attitudes to walking in Spain possibly?
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