My first days were spent in Madrid. It's a large hot city. It's not my favourite European capital, but it does have some nice parts. The cathedral and royal palace are very impressive. The food is great. One night we went out for tapas. I really enjoyed it, except for the eating with the hands part. You have to keep in mind that Spaniards eat late, so don't go too early. We went at 2100, and we were the first ones in the restaurant. One day we went hiking in the mountains just north of Madrid. It was really beautiful. The area was dry and rocky, with steep cliffs and fast flowing streams. Kind of how I had always pictured Spain. It was a fun hike, anyone who knows me knows how i like to jump and climb around on rocks, and there was lots of that. The interesting part of the trip was when we came across two people who might have been thinking of doing a little skinny-dipping... That wouldn't have been too bad, but since they felt the need to fondle each other quite a bit while doing it, made it all a bit uncomfortable.On Monday we drove north to Bilbao. My first time driving in Europe, and my first time driving on the highway in a manual shift car! Fun! Driving was a bit different over there. The highways are very curvy, so you always had to pay attention to stay between the line. Also, Spanish drivers are crazy. The horn is an important and mandatory piece of equipment for driving in the country. Passing someone on the highway was interesting. It had to be done at high speed, or the next thing you'd notice would be another driver behind you, flashing his lights indicating you're being too slow.
Bilbao is a really great city, probably one of my new favourite cities in Europe. It used to be an industrial port city. It had all the dirt and pollution that came with it. But, in the last couple decades, the government has really done a lot to clean it up. It has new trams, a recently built subway, a beautiful downtown, and not to mention the Guggenheim museum:
Bilbao is one of the main cities of the Basque area of Spain, so everything was bilingual, although we never heard much basque being spoken. One day we went to visit an old monastery that was on the coast near Bilbao. It had a fantastic view of the ocean and coast. First we had to climb down to near the beach, then we had to climb a narrow and winding staircase up to the top of an island that was connected to the coast by a spit of land. At the top we found the monastery.
This was a much more lush and cool part of Spain compared to Madrid. With the ocean in front, and the mountains behind, it kept the cool air. It also rains more often... All in all, it wa a climate much like the Netherlands.Our next stop was the Loire valley of France!
