Today was a short drive in miles but pretty much all day taking the scenic route along the Basque coast from Irun to Bilbao, absolutely worth it. The direct route is 72 miles which Google Maps estimates to take 1h 18m door to door. My route was 123 miles in about 6 h 30m including a 15 minute stop at a Tesla Supercharger. It was a lovely way to spend a day in fine Basque weather, sunny intervals and very heavy showers. More sunny than wet. I picked a small selection of places to visit along the way. The headline image and three below were from the highlight, Ermite de San Juan de Gaztelugatxeko. I’ll let you try to pronounce it. Note the third photo below has 5 fishing boats heading for harbour and an oil drilling rig in shot. The navigation has a panic attack with each direction as the system has the names of roads in Spanish and also in Basque. By the time she has stumbled over the two names I’ve already made the turn. :-) The walk to the view point was a little over a mile return but down and up 240ft on a very steep path. It certainly got the heart rate up. The other stops were at the lighthouse at Santa Katalina Ibilpidea, and the much easier to say Laga and Laida. The former is a surfing beach which had a cute little shrine cut into the cliff face, and the other a lovely estuary. Nothing was open except in the drab little towns along the way which did not shout “stop and take a look” to me. I had been looking forward to coffee and a snack at the cafe at the lighthouse, which was also closed. Hence a post I made on Facebook about eating early, very early by Spanish standards, I was hungry. The road itself climbed little mountains, which run straight back from the coast, and twisted and turned. In between it weaved its way along the coastal cliffs. Without discipline I would still be on the road if I stopped at everywhere there was something interesting to see. I did make a few stops. It is the first time I can remember when there was no use for the car’s autopilot giving me a slightly stiff right ankle. I must reiterate, this was six and half hours well spent. A slight historical note is that to cross the river feeding the estuary at Laida took a good drive south where the river crossing was in Gernika, made famous by Pablo Picasso in his painting Guernica after the terrible bombing of the town during the Spanish Civil War.

For orientation there is an outline map is here.