Blog of the Morning Calm

Bilbao in 24 Hours

In October we went to the north of Spain for a long weekend. In true Sobcoe style, we saw a heck of a lot in four days and this blog is all about our first stop: Bilbao.

Bilbao is the capital of the Basque region and is a wonderful city to explore – we did it all in a day but there’s definitely enough to see and do to fill a weekend. We thoroughly recommend it, along with the surrounding area, which we'll tell you about in our next few posts.

But before we go any further, you can experience Bilbao for yourself in a 360 virtual reality video we have made as part of our VRlog (VR vlog) series. The next few blog posts about this long weekend compliment the VR experiences we've already released about the trip. If you want to try them out, ask Santa for an Oculus Go for Christmas and join Morning Calm in VR.

Okay, back to reality. We landed in Bilbao early on the Thursday morning, figured out the public transport from the airport to the centre of town, and eventually made it to our hotel. It was a lovely business hotel that we stayed in for FREE thanks to Hotels.com Rewards that we have saved from all our other trips. We were too early to check in so just dumped our bags, got our equipment ready for 360 filming, and began our whirlwind tour of the city.

Our first stop was the Guggenheim museum – probably the most famous attraction in the city. It is a phenomenal piece of architecture and is one of the 12 National Treasures of Spain. This long weekend actually featured TWO National Treasures of Spain but you'll have to wait for the next post…or watch the VR video from the Bay of Biscay!

The Guggenheim is an art museum but the design of the building and the surrounding sculptures are pretty artistic in their own rights. It's as striking in its beauty as any building can be and has revitalised the old port area of Bilbao.

As usual, we did not go into the art museum. Similar to most castles, we find the exterior more interesting (and free!) than the sometimes disappointing inside. We normally find art museums boring and I think it's often too much of the same (albeit interesting) thing with not enough variety. It would be like going to an ice cream museum and eating 20 varieties of ice cream over a couple of hours. It sounds great as an idea but in practice, too much sweetness and not enough variety. You'd be craving some crisps or something to cleanse your pallet. That's what it's like with paintings and artists’ creations. It's like watching two films back to back - my curious mind can't handle the consistent and predictable entertainment.

After the ‘Heim, we explored the bridges, buildings, and old town. The Casco Viejo (old town) is full of cool sights and we easily could have spent a whole day there if we’d gone at a calm pace. We were more like Morning Excited though, as we only had the one day, so we hurried around snapping memories of the beautiful architecture. I was particularly fond of the bridges and the cathedral, which left the strongest impression.

Outside of the old town, there was the usual plethora of plazas and old stone government buildings that grabbed our attention. Bilbao is a bit smaller than Valencia and easily explored by foot, though ours were pretty sore by the end.

The final major site we're going to talk about is the hill of Artxanda, which is just on the edge of the city. There is an old cable car that takes you all the way to the top and it is a great place to get a panoramic of the city. It was a fantastic view and a must-do when the weather is good enough; the hills surrounding the city, the view of the river and Guggenheim, and the never-ending Bilbao signage make it an interesting place to spend an hour.

The surrounding park is worth a wander as well but the San Roque church (signposted) is NOT worth the effort. In the midday heat, with all our camera stuff, we walked the mile and bit to get to a tiny chapel on top of a hill. The views were somewhat obscured by trees and it was a little disappointing. After the delight of the mirador close to the cable car, our expectations were not met!

Our now tired and sweaty legs deserved a little respite and that came in the form of a delicious ice cream from a fancy shop. This isn’t the only thing we ate in Bilbao and I haven’t mentioned one of the other big attractions we visited, Ribera Market. That's because Katie will talk about all things edible in a separate post in a few weeks. And the food in this region is quite distinct, so that’ll definitely be worth reading.

That’s it for Bilbao. Next time we'll tell you about the second day of the trip, when we drove along the Bay of Biscay, which you can also explore with us in full 360 virtual reality! For now, we'll leave you with some of our favourite photos.

This is the view from the top of the hill. I'd say it was worth the walk but we took the train up!

The disappointing church at the end of the sweltering mile-long walk

And here are our photos of the Guggenheim...there are loads because it's a stunning building and just so photogenic, we couldn't choose our favourites!

La Tomatina

Those who don’t know what Tomatina is are in for a shock. It is utter madness. A huge tomato fight and party in the town of Buñol, which is a stone's throw from Valencia. You can't throw stones though, only tomatoes.

Our Tomatina involved Dan and Kate (two friends from London) who were visiting us to witness the mayhem of Tomatina and explore the sights of Valencia. We drove to the festival in a rented car that we covered in bin bags to stop our inevitable dripping bodies from stealing my deposit. We wore old, throwaway clothes, goggles, and the ladies wore shower caps and hats in an attempt to stop their hair becoming a tomato entangled mess.

The town of Buñol is converted into a tourist hotspot for a day every August, with everyone there enjoying the paella, beer, and music. When we arrived at 9am the atmosphere was teetering, ready to explode at the drop of a tomato… But the tomatoes took their time to arrive. The build up involved athletic bodies launching themselves up a greased pole in an attempt to grab a massive jamon. If anyone managed this feat, then the tomato fight would start early. It looked like an impossible task to me and it would take a Navy seal team to reach the summit… so we had to wait for the starting pistol.

The pole was covered in grease and nobody made it further than halfway up!

The main event started at 11am, with the first truck crawling down the narrow street. The security staff were aggressive and firm, pushing everyone to the sides. This is where Katie and I got separated from Dan and Kate, which was a real shame because I wanted to pelt tomatoes at my friends. It was chaotic and people were falling over left, right, and centre. And then the first tomato hit me.

I immediately declared that if anyone threw a tomato at me, I would go alpha male on them. This tactic didn't work… Everyone was pelting everyone and within minutes we were covered head to toe in citric acid juices, with chunks of fleshy fruit all over us.

The trucks that crawled down the street contained dozens of youngsters who took aim and destroyed us street dwellers with the tomatoes from the vehicle. I kept trying to hit one of the truck throwers but it was difficult, especially when you can barely see a thing. Tomatoes were smashing into faces and my eye protection was blurry so eventually I had to remove it. My tomato throwing accuracy immediately increased.

The tomatoes were generally old and soft but occasionally a hard green one would fly through the air. I got hit a few times by these and it was a painful experience. Definitely more painful than I expected.

There were rivers of tomato juices and ankle-deep puddles that had a satisfying plunge as you stepped in them. It was great fun and the fight lasted for about an hour.

Afterwards we were hosed down by the locals like prison inmates, to wash the bulk of the tomatoes off. The four of us met back up at the car and assessed the damage; everyone had a black eye, except me. But that was it. We were fortunate not to suffer more losses on the battlefield. The gods were looking after us that day.

We stripped off, positioned ourselves carefully on the bin bags in the car and headed to the beach to jump in the sea and wash off the remainder of the tomatoes.

Looking back, it was a very odd experience and one I would highly recommend if you don’t mind getting destroyed by tomatoes.

Unfortunately, we didn't get any 360 footage of the festival - that will have to wait for another year. But the GoPro's waterproof case turned out to also be tomato-proof, so we got some decent shots. And one official photo from the event serves as a bit of a "Where's Wally" - can you spot me? The answer is at the end of the post!

Dijon - Strong like the mustard

After having a wonderful time at Jen and Patrick's wedding, which Katie wrote about last time, we both visited the nearby city of Dijon.

We only spent a few hours there but similar to the Lads Tour de France, we explored enough of the city to get a good feel for it.

I'm becoming a big fan of French cities - they are so delightful to walk around and take in the pretty buildings. The quaint streets of Dijon just kept surprising me and there were a lot of these wood-beamed buildings like in Rennes.

We also spent a fair amount of time marvelling at the old churches that littered the city. Our friend's son, William, was with us and after we went to a fairground ride, he gave us a perfect excuse to buy an ice cream!