I traveled to Spain mainly to meet Sharon after her pilgrimage from Porto to Santiago de Compostela. With a few days free at the front end, I stayed with a friend in Bilbao who I knew from jr high and high school. Although I’d almost visited Bilbao for work in the 1990s, this was my first time there. The city has since expanded, especially with the Guggenheim Museum and a new sports stadium that just hosted the Six Nations Rugby Tournament. Bilbao is a really good-sized walkable city – similar to Trieste in Italy – and has most of what you need but not overwhelming.
Curt and his wife Andrea moved from the US to Spain last year and have settled in well, integrating into Expat and Spanish communities and found their local places to hang out. One night met some of their friends at the Irish Pub and later visited the “The Star” which was pretty unchanged from the 1970s – including the bartender. Unlike my Expat experiences, retirees abroad have made long-term commitments, dealing with rentals, utilities, various bureaucracies and starting fresh in new places. We also made the funicular trip to the top of Mount Artxanda – but missed the last car down. Luckily we could Uber.
We did a couple of quick recces through the city, one through the Old Town and one around the Guggenheim – but it was a record heat wave and we moved pretty quickly (and I had little interest in the contemporary art in the museum). Curt and I tried to escape the heat and went to the beach town of Plentzia – which was about 30 minutes from town on the subway. Nice beach and surroundings but no actual beach bars – we got sangria a block off the beach with the back of an apartment complex as our main view. We are thinking this could be a business opportunity – orange and black motif.
The Santiago airport was closed – so to get the 400 miles from Bilbao (near France) to Santiago (near the west coast) there were limited options, Train was via Madrid (and all day) or a 12 hour bus. So I rented a car and drove – mostly freeway and along the coast and it was pretty scenic.
Sharon and I planned to meet at 5pm. I arrived in Santiago at 4pm, but the city was larger than expected and parking near the church wasn’t available. There was no clear “finish line”—some said it was the church entrance, others the square. We eventually found each other in the square without any dramatic moment, and later spotted the symbolic mile marker zero at the Pilgrim office nearby as Sharon collected her Compostela – her official certificate.
Travel note: Transitions were more complicated than expected on this whole trip, partly due to bad luck and some incompetence (from both locals and myself). In Madrid, my 3.5-hour layover involved changing airlines; it took 3 hours to clear immigration, collect and re-check luggage, and reach the next terminal. I made it to boarding with about 20 minutes to spare and logged 5,000 steps. In Santiago, Google Maps failed to account for one-way streets and pedestrian zones, causing multiple navigation issues and a scraped rim from a tight turn. Eventually, I parked 1.5 miles from the church.
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