I’m skipping some days, just because there are only a few things we did that do not need to be documented. Or, I already posted them on my instagram site. @bigalwood or @alhitstheroad.
We made it to Spain. Super easy flight on Ryanair which was only about an hour. We received all sorts of “you need to do this before you get to Spain” emails, which we did, so entering was a breeze. One was an app we had to download to input all our health, contact, and where we will be data that generated a QR code. We flashed it upon landing, and they waved us right in. All of us are traveling on UK passports, so passport control was just a wave as well. Never even had to remove our masks. Which by the way, are mandatory at all times in Spain. The only time you take them off is 1) in your own car, 2) in your own hotel room/house, 3) while eating. I hate them. I have yet to find one that doesn’t fog up my glasses, or blow hot air directly into my eyes. Within a couple of hours, I have a headache and my eyes are killing me.
All of us are carrying multiple types of hand gel. My brother, Bill, touches everything, so we are constantly pulling our gel out to squirt him down.
We learned that they don’t speak “normal” Spanish. But, I guess it’s similar to a US person going over to Scotland and trying to understand their slang. It’s Galician, Catalonian, Basque, and Spanish up where we are and its different. I speak just enough Spanish to get by. Luckily, they speak enough English that we can figure things out.
Siesta – yes, it’s a real thing. We went to the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao today, and decided to have a late lunch. We checked into the hotel, had to find an open parking lot down the street – underground – and tried to go to a couple different restaurants at 3pm. All were done serving lunch and wouldn’t open back up until 8pm. Including the hotel restaurant. I was NOT a happy camper. I was hangry to say the least, but after asking our waiter several questions about what to expect while on our trip, our waiter took pity and brought out some dried meats, olives, and bread. Then told us that COVID has reduced a lot of restaurant hours, so we needed to be prepared for that on our walk. So, we will by buying stuff along the way to eat between lunch and dinner. Or just skip dinner if they are serving it that late. I mean, really, 9pm for some restaurants to open. No thanks.
Breakfast is not an early thing, either. We haven’t been able to eat before 8am. I came downstairs this morning, thinking I’d be able to at least have a cup of coffee in the lobby. It was like I asked them to move mountains. I told them it wasn’t any problem an that I’d wait, but they just turned on the Nespresso machine and told me it was okay.🙄. Once we were allowed to eat…..at exactly 8am. We had to gel up and put on some plastic gloves to go thru the buffet. Great idea.
One last thing – posing for photos. We all look like goobers. I sent a tictok to both of my brothers on posing tips. Here are the before and after photos:



We head off today to our starting off point, Roncesvalles.