So, yesterday afternoon we arrived in Bilbao after a pleasant cross-country drive from Burgos. We were booked into a hotel for the night to give us an evening and morning to investigate Bilbao, largely the Guggenheim museum, before our ferry back to Portsmouth.

The first thing to point out about Bilbao is that its geography, crammed between the Bay of Biscay and various precipitous chunks of ground not dissimilar from mountains, forces roads to be funnelled together resulting in a frenetic confusion of both roads and junctions between said lumps of rock. For once, I really appreciated having Sally Satnav and was very grateful that I didn’t have to rely on good old fashioned map reading. As good as Francine is with a map, the rapidity with which curves and junctions come upon one – speeds are quite high as many of the roads are motorway grade – any driver unfamiliar with the territory and names has little chance to assimilate the signs before the next decision is forced upon them. Being surrounded, as one inevitably is, by local Spanish drivers, going slow to gain time is not a viable option. After several leaps of the heart into the mouth, Sally got us to our target road.

Note that I said target road, not target hotel. Francine had been unable to program the precise hotel location so we just ended up near some random address on the road. Actually, we ended up at a T-junction onto the road. Left or right? Flip a coin. I went left and, after a little while we passed what we thought might be the hotel name we sought. Note also the term passed. At this point we were about half way up one of the aforementioned precipitous lumps of high ground. The roads are narrow with twists and turns. There are few, if any side turns resulting in a lack of places to flip a U-turn. I soon found myself heading for a slip road onto a dual carriageway taking us rapidly away from where we needed to be. I managed to make what was probably an illegal turn using a piece of rough ground immediately before the junction.

We returned to the hotel we’d seen where we were forced to cross opposing traffic approaching around a blind-ish bend and ended up in what this place laughingly called a parking area. Five cars was about the limit. The gate in was narrow and the driveway slope rivalled the worst of the Devon and Cornwall roads and had us nosing alarmingly down the mountainside on what must have been a 1 in 3 slope. Somehow, I parked. We announced our arrival. Wrong hotel! Señor Receptionista told us that the correct hotel was 4.5kms down the twisting, turning road. I should’ve gone right not left. The good thing about this was that this particular hotel looked and smelt like a dive and we’d rather have slept in our car. The bad thing was that I now had to renegotiate the cramped parking area and the 1 in 3 uphill slope to get the hell out again.

We meandered roughly 4.5kms down the twisting, turning road. Once again we missed and watched our correct hotel disappear on the left before we could turn in. Again there was no way to turn around. We ended up all the way at the bottom of the hill in Bilbao itself before I could perform what was probably another illegal manoeuver and return. Finally we checked in. What fun. A precise location in the satnav would’ve saved so much trouble. We drank several glasses of reality correction fluid – red reality correction fluid.

[I might offer a short explanation – oh, alright, an excuse – for our hotel name confusion. This is Basque country. The Basque language has cornered the market in the use of the letter X, most frequently in combination with a preceding letter T. We now know this combination makes a sound like our more familiar CH combination but it looks very unfamiliar to our eyes. The sound is largely irrelevant; almost every name looks like —ETX—. We’d initially picked one wrong —ETX— before finding the correct —ETX—.]

Right, so, we’re here. Bilbao highlights.

Our —ETX— looks down on the tallest skyscraper in Bilbao – pretty much the only skyscraper in Bilbao – which is the resultantly ostentatious Iberdrola [Spanish electricity company] building. We are quite high up one of those mountainous lumps. Fortunately, since I’m sure parking down below would require the intervention of someone’s non-existent deity, there is a wonderful old funicular railway running up and down the mountainside. It’s known affectionately as the “funi”. We were keen to give it a try. The top station was about 2kms from our —ETX—. We diced with the road again, this time managing not to miss our turn incurring another 5km penalty, and parked. Each funi ride costs 95 centimos. Brilliant – worth every centimos! Here’s a view downhill. This view is very similar to the one we had driving into our first, incorrect —ETX— but without the driver’s head.

We headed for the famous Guggenheim museum. To get there, we had to cross  an appealingly architected pedestrian bridge over the Bilbao river and saunter along the opposite bank.

Yesterday I freely admitted to being a cultural numbskull. Today I freely admit to being an artistic numbskull, too. [Are you getting an inkling as to why cities and I don’t mix?] I’m not entirely sure who or what a Guggenheim is because mercifully we didn’t go in. However, there was a piece of what I imagine is so-called modern art outside so I’ve mentally filed the Guggenheim away in the same dusty folder as the Tate Modern. I have to say that the structure of the Guggenheim building looks unique and quite interesting. When we were there, in common with the distressing majority of this trip to Spain, the sun was not out. I’m left wondering what this vast collection of differently angled metal plates might look like when the sun does shine. I’ll probably never really know, now.

Much is made of the so-called spider and of Pupi, both standing outside the Guggenheim. The spider may have eight legs but clearly isn’t really a spider, looking more like a spider-shaped collection of sticks. Pupi, on the other hand, is an immense flower bed standing 12m high, roughly in the shape of a dog. Why? Neither the colours of the flowers nor the way in which they are planted look particularly significant. So, more modern art, then, nothing being quite what it might seem. Give me Canaletto any day of the week.

Much more entertaining to my mind in Bilbao, was the fact that the buses are run under the name of Bilbobus and that there are tourist river boats trading under the wonderful bilingual joke of Bilboats. Terrific!

Having had pleasant weather for our journey through the animal-free interior of Spain yesterday, this morning we awoke to our old Spanish friend of this trip, grey skies. At breakfast, light rain began but the skies looked a little brighter to the north so we hoped out planned visit to Burgos en route to Bilbao might remain dry.

Our first challenge was negotiating the centre of a city and finding somewhere to park. After a few corners, we lucked out and found what appeared to be the only metered parking spot left unoccupied in Burgos. Francine eventually managed to divine the correct use of a machine with no instructions and bought us a 2-hour ticket.

Being a gastronaut, I know of Burgos for its famous morcilla. Well, famous might be going a bit far outside of Spain but it is the producer of a very fine Spanish version of black pudding/boudin noir/blood sausage. Morcilla de Burgos makes a fine lunch fried with fresh habas [broad beans] and, of course, some obligatory garlic. We’ve enjoyed this combination on a number of occasions. The morcilla de Burgos (there are other Spanish morcillas) contains rice which gives it a somewhat lighter texture than others, certainly lighter than our rather dry, gluey black pudding affairs with huge lumps of fat inside. [No, I do like it, honest!] I have tried emulating morcilla y habas at home using British black pudding and – you must trust me on this – it doesn’t work; British black pudding simply cannot be used in the same way. I’d love to have bought some morcilla de Burgos from its source but we had no cooler facilities for transportation and our journey still had two days to run. Shame.

Another thing Burgos is famous for is its cathedral. Not to me, of course, being a confirmed atheist; I didn’t even know it had a cathedral. However, Francine did and wanted to cast her eyes over it so we stumped up our two 7€ entrance fees, which included an audio tour on a wand in the language of your choice, and went in.

Now, audio tours. I chose one in English, naturally, but, for all the good it did me, I might have well have chosen Greek. I freely admit to being a cultural numbskull but I find the concept of audio tours in this context somewhat bemusing. They have to try to give you value for money which normally means trying to fill your head with a lot of names of people you’ve never heard of, together with a lot of dates you stand little chance of ever remembering. I soon tired of listening to intricate detail and stopped punching in the numbers at the various listening stations on the tour – I really don’t care which architect designed this particular chapel – and just started looking.

As with all cathedrals, the amount of money and effort mankind put into paying homage to a fictitious super-being is beyond me. Be that as it may, staring at the undoubted skills of the carpenters, artists and stonemasons employed to waste their time on such things can provide a pleasant enough distraction for 15 minutes or so.

I think this picture might be what is called an altar piece. I can just imagine the bishop saying, “very nice lads but it’s too tall, it’s obscuring the bottom of the windows, make it again but about 2m shorter”. Really, you’d think they’d make it fit, wouldn’t you? As I was concentrating only at half throttle, I may have this wrong but I think the wand told me, before I switched it off, that the cathedral at Burgos was the first built in the Gothic style on the Iberian peninsular … whatever that means.

The route to exit the cathedral proved to be considerably longer than the tour route itself. On your way out, however, you come across another thing for which Burgos is famous: El Cid, a.k.a. Rodrigo Díaz  de Vivar, who was born nearby c. 1043. Naturally, El Cid is not himself there – well, no, he IS there; he pegged out in 1099 and is buried in Burgos cathedral – but there’s a mural of him which appears to make him look a lot more like Charlton Heston than does Charlton Heston himself. I wonder when this mural was painted?

We still had a little time remaining on the meter so enjoyed a coffee beside the river front in the centre of Burgos. This amazed me more. The promenade was lined on either side with what I think are plane trees, forming what must be a very pleasantly shaded environment for summer heat, though they were not yet in leaf. What amazed us was the way that each tree’s canopy had been grafted together with the canopies of all of its neighbouring trees. How terrific and what a wonderful idea, creating a completely integrated canopy – now there’s something worthy of effort.

We retraced our steps and found our car. Sally Satnav II threw a bit of a fit and had us driving through buildings to begin with but we hung in there and, in an act of faith not dissimilar from the builders of cathedrals, found our way out of Burgos to complete our journey cross country to Bilbao.

The Jalón area really is the only area of Spain we know so we’ve decided to pause twice en route back to Bilbao to investigate a bit more of the country. Friends have recommended a hotel in some place called La Vid which is close enough to enable us to visit Burgos before heading for Bilbao. Sounds like a plan. We booked in before departing.

Our journey began heading up the coast to Valencia before cutting inland to pass Teruel, eventually clambering off autopistas/autovias [?] to strike out across country to end up in La Vid south of Burgos. I’ll try to describe the journey briefly. Once out of Valencia, we spent the first part of the journey watching large fields that were essentially empty. Once off the motorways, the majority of the remainder of the journey felt like driving through countryside that honestly looked like rough ground, most closely resembling a quarry. In moments of high drama, the rough ground might change colour from a russet red to a pale grey, then back again.

We were treated to a few sightings of raptors flying. Vultures were particularly well represented – I think they were Griffon Vultures – so they must’ve thought there was wildlife somewhere in the landscape. Other than birds, though, we couldn’t see any. Now, catch this: our journey was 380 miles. In that 380 miles we saw just two animals, one distant deer grazing peacefully and one horse standing beneath a pylon in a field. Just imagine that; it’s like driving from London to Edinburgh and seeing a single example of wildlife and a single domesticated animal. It’s utterly unbelievable.

We had driven past several villages/small towns, frequently through the outskirts of them and most places looked essentially closed. We saw nothing to entice us off the road. The same was true as we approached our destination of La Vid. La Vid lay literally 50 m off the main road over a bridge crossing the Rio Duero. It proved to be what our American friends might call a 1-horse town [ah ah, that’s where it came from!] with just a single street, a monastery, our hotel and a few dwellings. We parked in part of the quarry and went to announce our arrival.

El Lagar de Isilla is a bodega that’s been restored and turned into a hotel. We were allocated room 106 which our delightful receptionist informed us was called Los Romanos. Now, how to paint a picture of this hotel room? I think I need a few pictures to save a few thousand words, though I should give a few clues as to what you should be looking out for. Firstly the double bed was huge, about 2m wide, and would have easily befitted a Roman orgy.

In keeping with being an old bodega, the inventive hotel designer had done some very interesting things with reshaped wine bottles.

The ceiling was particularly interesting. One of our switches was labelled cupola which might translate to dome though not in my phone’s app. Suffice to say there was a dome let into the ceiling with a cloud and sky scene painted on it. Another of the switches was labelled estrallas [stars]. Yes, there were stars twinkling and changing colour in the sky dome. At least, there were until you switched them off. [They were sharper than my picture would have you believe.]

And now, the piece de resistance, or whatever the Spanish equivalent might be: the shower. The shower was behind a door opened by one of those inventively reformed wine bottles. Francine went first and had to figure out how to use it. How can showers be so darn difficult? On the side wall of the shower was a tap with a reasonably ordinary looking shower head. Turn on and water sprays out. The thing was, there was nowhere to fix this spray head up high – it appeared you ad to hand-hold it.

That can’t be right, it would be way too naff for this place. Quite by accident, Francine disturbed the tap and turned it in the opposite direction. Water drenched her from above. the main shower head was inset into the ceiling and surrounded by lights. Brilliant!

I have a strong interest in food. I am also a very adventurous eater; snails and frogs’ legs are tame compared to the Thai delights of silk worm, bamboo worm, cricket and congealed chicken blood that I’ve sampled. I read cookery books, watch cookery programs – at least, those that don’t turn it into a competitive sport – and my mind tends to hang on to the unusual. My knowledge is not encyclopaedic but I do have a bit of a reputation for having a decent knowledge of the gastronomic art.

A fascinating looking pile of something on Valencia market seafood stall had me stumped. Whatever it was, it had my friend Chris, also keen on seafood, stumped as well. The stall holder did not appear to speak English and Chris’s Spanish – he’s lived here for 11 years – proved inadequate for the Spanish explanation, too. Here’s the picture of our intriguing food item again. I had stared at them with a long buried memory nagging, trying to escape, but all to no avail. I felt frustrated.

Fortunately, my complete photograph carefully included the Spanish name, percebe. Cheap they are not, this pile being priced at some 12.50€ for ¼kg. A swift Internet search revealed them to be Goose Barnacles, or Goose-necked Barnacles. These are a highly prized Galician speciality. I even found a Gordon Ramsay F-Word program on YouTube showing how they were gathered and then cooked. The maniacs who go out fishing for the percebes are called perceberos. They dress themselves as they think appropriate and jump around rough, craggy rocks being pounded by crashing Atlantic surf – sometimes they seem to dive into the surf itself – armed with a simple knife on a stick, apparently the only tool they’re allowed, harvesting these hapless crustaceans manually. No wonder they command such a high price.

Percebes are traditionally boiled briefly in sea water but you can fake that out with some salt and fresh water – 70g salt to each litre water seems the recommended dose. There should be just enough water to cover your prized purchase. Bring the water to the boil, then chuck in the percebes. When the water returns to the boil, stop – fish them out – on no account over cook them. Naturally, that F-ing Gordon Ramsey tarted them up with some fino sherry, bay leaves and cream.

What you eat is not the white-mottled claw end; use this as a handle to hold the beast then strip the leathery casing off the fleshy arm, and eat that. No, the fleshy arm, not the leathery casing!!

Now, of course, having found something interesting that I’ve never tried, I am desperate to give them a go. We’ll be having to return to Valencia market on a future trip ‘cos that’s the only place I know to get the beasts.

[And well done to those of you who jumped the gun with the answer, you smart arses! 😀 ]

For a few years now, our friends with el perrito in Jalón have been threatening to shoow us round Valencia, particularly the covered market about which they eulogize. Being a foodie, I couldn’t help but be impresssed, they claimed. Finally, today it was going to happen. We’d drive to Xeraco, the second stop on the line from Gandia, and take a train ride into Valencia so we were really going to be educated – our first brush with a Spanish train, as well.

In common with most railway stations, Xeraco could use a bit more in the way of parking but we found a spot and bailed out. The Spanish seem incapable of buying anything without a protracted conversation. This includes train tickets. The lady in front of us at the ticket window had picked up her tickets but kept nattering with the ticket seller just long enough for the train that had recently pulled into the station to pull back out again. We finally got a chance to buy our tickets and waited the 30 minutes for the next train. Never mind, that’s 30 minutes of city that I wouldn’t have to survive. 😀

Next lesson: to get to the platform on the other side of the station you simply wander across the railway tracks. Pedestrian bridge? No, of course not. Wonderful. Fortunately, we were on the correct platform to head into Valencia and didn’t have to take our lives in our hands.

The train ride took about 50 minutes and went through the pan-flat rice fields of Valencia. Valencia is the rice bowl of Spain and is, of course, where the famed Paella Valenciana hails from. At this time of year the fields were bone dry and empty – just dry tilled soil. A little work was going on in a few fields so maybe soon they will be cultivating the next crop of Valenciana rice. We wondered where they were going to find enough fresh water in this arid part of Spain to flood the seemingly endless landscape of rice paddies. [Yes, I know we’ve suffered more than our fair share of rain but it’s normally arid.]

The station at Valencia is an impressive structure worthy of the Victorians. Having paused for long enough to go, “oo, ah” appreciatively, we wandered outside and stepped back a couple of millennia as we were faced with the adjacent bull ring, reminiscent of a Roman amphitheatre. The Romans were keen on slaughtering animals, and each other, for entertainment, too. The red, London-like double decker bus was a little incongruous, though maybe it continued the bloody theme. 😉

Pausing again en route for a coffee and toast with olive oil, we finally made it to the revered covered market. When we entered, it didn’t seem that large but, as we started wandering around, up and down alleyways between files of market stalls, it became evident that this building was actually a Tardis. Food dilation – now there’s a concept!

The market did not disappoint. I found myself wanting sufficient Spanish, any really, to engage the stall holders in conversation, quizzing them about their wares. The stalls appeared to be arranged reasonably logically, with similar produce grouped together. We began with butchers, worked our way past vegetable stalls, charcuterie [sorry, French term] stalls with endless Serrano hams and sausages dangling temptation our way. One stall had piles of that quintessentially Spanish ingredient, pimentón. Another stall had just piles of something more associated with the French but of which , the Spanish are equally fond: nothing but snails; more snails than you could shake a bulb of garlic at. Finally we came across the fish and seafood area which mesmerised us for quite a while and set the conundrum of the day. [More later, methinks.]

One other feature struck us at the market: not only was the apparent quality of the produce on offer very high but also the dress of some of the more attractive female stall holders. One delightful lady even waggled a large langoustine at us. An attractive woman with fresh seafood – I was in heaven!! Really, they were a delight. It was all a delight. We’d have loved a cold box to enable us to purchase some of the more perishable items but we came away with just some freshly podded habas [broad beans]. There is an intriguing machine that pods the beans, too, though I couldn’t see enough of the mechanism either to snap it or to figure out how on earth it works but work it most surely did.

We finished the day with a pleasant tapas lunch before returning to the station and our return train ride. This time, we did have to wander across the tracks to exit Xeraco station. Experience complete.

At least we now know enough to repeat the day out by ourselves, maybe with a cool box, next time.

OK, the promised conundrum: what do you make of these on a fish and seafood counter? No, we had no idea either. Neither the stall holders English nor our Spanish could help. Hmmm!?