Playa de La Arena

I wanted to take the underground to  Portugalete but Viv was insistent on walking. Last time we walked the East side of the river, see https://tangogales.wordpress.com/2016/08/11/bilbao-to-playa-de-arena-24-9kilometers/ That was boring so we elected to walk the west side. This, in hindsight, was an error. The first part, walking out of the town itself was fine. There were many parks and flower beds, but we soon got tangled up with the new roads. At one point we ended up in a dead-end part of town and had to back track to get back on the route. Then we came close to crossing the river on an arterial road, it was difficult navigation, to say the least. We came up behind two guys navigating with their phone and managed to get the drop on them when we took a short cut. Then when finally clear of the main roads we ran out of arrows.  Finally they took us down to the river in Portugalete, a pointless exercise, as we then had to climb back up. Thank heavens for the travelators. We bought some bread and meat at the bottom and stopped for some lunch halfway up the hill.

We stopped again at the top for some coffee and a comfort break.

View from our apartment in Playa de la Arena

The beach at La Arena

Enjoying a beer in Playa de la Arena

This time we did not stop at Ortuella as we had already stopped, maybe we will on our return. We did stop later just short of Kardeo in a nice spot by the houses where there were benches for us to rest on. This is the only high point on what is basically a cycle route.  It is a boring tarmacadam path, on the most part easy going and it zigzags up the steepest inclines. Not much fun when you are still struggling to get in rhythm and cyclist are flying past you.

We managed again to get an apartment at Apartmentos Playa de la Arena. Expensive for us but a nice luxury and the only place to stay here. We ate later at Maloka Sunset bar. It’s a bit like the sunset bar in Ibiza, but we would not be staying up for the sunset. The need to be out early next day was too great. Viv likes the rice dishes here, but we came very close to getting three of them instead of two, when I asked for two rice dishes and then listed them. I will have to be careful how I ask in future.