Time to leave the Picos De Europa mountains today. We didn’t want to – seems we never want to leave anywhere. But these mountains are spectacular. I mean we will be seeing more mountains soon – but not these ones.

We had our usual breakfast at the hotel but I brought down a little thing of olive oil and salt to add to my makeshift tomato bread.

The mountains were looking particularly glorious this morning with the sun shining on them. And the roads were busy! We tried to drive the other way a bit to see some new sights, but the roads were just too busy. So we went back down the mountain to our favourite little town and got some coffees – and also picked up some lunch supplies. We could get used to this lifestyle.

Oh I almost forgot! When we we checking out if Hostal Poncebos – we got an up close and personal visit from “Poncebos” the bull dog. He is very cute.

Ok, time to hit the road. We are heading to Basque Country today – but first a lunch stop in the coastal town of Santander. It was crazy busy there on the beach even though it was really windy and not my idea of a nice beach day. We ate our baguette, jamon and blue cheese (from the cave- we picked up another pack)

We drove through lots of mountains and then suddenly we were in Basque. The traffic signs – suddenly changed language! Just as we were getting the hang of Spanish, everything turned Basque – it’s quite the different language.

We made it to Bilbao – but first we had to stop at the convention centre to get our wristbands for BBK music festival. It was a bit tricky to figure out where we had to go – signage is not this country’s strong point- but we eventually worked it out.

Then we checked in to our rather swish hotel – The Hotel Carlton. Rumour has it, Pulp (who we are seeing tomorrow night at the festival) are also staying here. We haven’t spotted them yet – but hope to meet Jarvis in the elevator.

I dared Steve to run down the hallway singing “Let’s all meet up in the year 2000…” but he wouldn’t, and instead we just got The Shining vibes.

Ok, time to explore Bilbao. It was siesta time lots of things were closed, also it’s kinda of a disorienting layout. We didn’t know where we were going. We went and had a look at the Guggenheim museum and saw the big puppy artwork. We wonder how they maintain this artwork?

It was getting close to dinner time (for us anyway) but we were so confused and couldn’t find any food areas. We hard heard Bilbao was a foodie town – but where the heck is all the food? Are we going to have to have a supermarket dinner?

We wandered around aimlessly for a while – and then, suddenly like a shining light – we saw it – ALL THE BARS AND ALL THE FOOD OMG THIS IS INSANE HOW CAN A TOWN OF ONLY 350,000 PEOPLE HAVE ALL THESE PLACES?!?!??!?

We went in to one and wasted no time getting some pinxtos and drinks. So good.

We had the local wine – Txakoli – very tasty.

We went for a wander and couldn’t resist stopping in to another place for a drink and pinxtos. It was so busy everywhere – honestly I’m sure the entire city is out here eating. Even though it’s busy though, it’s not crowded- you can get a seat or find a spot to stand easily.

Even though we really wanted to just keep eating and drinking all night, it was getting late and we have a big day of festival attending tomorrow so we decided to call it a night. Bilbao, you are A ok!