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Spain


This toilet has quite long instructions in three languages. As I rode past, I glanced at them and sa... A park. I shouldn't have come up here. This way. Noisy quacking ducks on a pond at Seve Ballesteros Airport. There is a one-way cycling circuit around the perimeter of the airport. It seems quite popular.... A plane landing. Here's a sneaky way off. The road on the left is inside the airport fence. The middle one is the cyc... A small embarcadero, or marina. A sign for the Camino de Santiago. The narrow end of Santander Bay. The village of Pedreña, which is where Seve Ballesteros actually came from. I'm not in a hurr... A view back across the bay to Santander. Barnacles. The Skoda has a registration from Tromsø in Arctic Norway. I assume its occupants have driven all t... It looks like low tide. I guess that you must get large tides on the day of an eclipse because the M... The white shape in front of the dark green hill in the distance is the ship which brought me from Po... I sat here for about an hour watching ferries from two companies come and go. The red ones seem to b... Three touring cyclists have just arrived to get the ferry across to Santander. It's hard to tell fro... The town is called Somo. Another view towards Santander, this time with a beach. Somo. My first hotel of this trip. Surfing seems to be big in Somo. This is the staircase in my hotel. The view from my balcony. People gathering to watch the eclipse. Some of them have brought a telescope. There's the Sun. Somo Beach. Partially-eclipsed sunlight on Somo Beach. The view through eclipse glasses. They are all wearing them. I don't like the look of that cloud. The forecast has been saying that the sky would be clear all da... Now the cloud is thick enough that we can comfortably look at this with our bare eyes. Spectators. Spectators. Three minutes to go. This is the total eclipse. We didn't get to see the Corona. I didn't even get to see the shadow rush... Eclipse selfies have become a bit of a tradition for me. The lights of the town are briefly visible during this one-minute night. Sunlight returning. Today's route starts by going up that hill. I was on this particular cycle path for about 4 km and in that distance I saw three of these rest ar... It's a pretty good ride, especially now that I've pumped my rear type up to the right pressure. Scenery. Cows. This bit of road is refreshingly cool. A view. This is a steep hairpin. One of many signs for the Camino which I saw today, all pointing the opposite way to the way that I'... An old shaded walkway. A view from the old bridge across the River Treto. The parallel motorway bridge, which I drove across on my 2023 trip. A monument from 1992 marking the 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage to America. A fountain near to my hotel in Laredo. I thought it was a bit strange that this car had a €50 note tucked under its rear wiper. Then I... There are some fancy houses in this road. My hotel has a knitted wall. The hotel is called the Anchor and the public rooms have a heavy nautical theme.... I think these dogs belong to the hotel. I hope my bike isn't too much in the way there. The only other places I could reasonably have locked... Laredo Beach. Laredo esplanade. This is a good supermarket but having a little travelator in the middle of it is a it unusual. I thought that sitting in the hotel garden for a while might help me to cool off but it isn't really... This seems like an absurdly low speed limit but then I did step out in front of a woman who was on a... I wonder what game is played here. Laredo. Laredo. Laredo. A sign and water fountain to welcome Camino pilgrims to Laredo. Of course, because I'm doing the Cam... The route recommended by Google Maps goes that way, along the pilgrim route. Roughly where the path ... A view from the hill before I turned back. I returned pretty much to sea level and came up this hill instead. This hotel has special rates for pilgrims. What didn't occur to me when I took the photograph is tha... There's no way I'll be able to do that speed. I saw lots of cyclists today, going both ways. These two are tackling one of the may big hills. I wa... I spent a lot of today on the N-634 which, as this sign says, goes from San Sebastian, 163 km in fro... A deep motorway cutting. The signs imply that you need some kind of remote control to open this bike rack in Islares. This s... Quack! The bull ring in Castro Urdiales. On the left, you can see a tiny bit of the Ocharan Palace, built in 1901. As the road passes it, it ... ... whereas the cycle path next to it goes through this more useful one. It would require about a 5 km round trip from tonight's hotel to get food, which I won't want to do ... I'm not the only one. "Foot" This can't be the medieval pilgrimage route. It feels a lot more like a disused railway line... ... with a tunnel. The section of the N-634 which goes over the next big hill doesn't have good shoulders to walk in so... So much for that idea. Although today's route is only about 43 km, it was meant to have about 650 me... Another view. More motorway engineering. A truck stop at the top of a hill. There are two hotels here. I considered staying here tonight but ... I'm actually quite pleased to see this petrochemical factory because I know my hotel is next to it. After entering the Basque Country, it was only a couple of minutes before I first saw the language's... By the side of the quiet road from Muskiz to San Julian de Muskiz. There isn't a bus stop here or an... I don't know what this jar of brown liquid is but it's not the only one I've seen today. Wonderful! This hotel has everything that the previous two were lacking. There's a functioning door ... My room had cooled down enough yesterday evening that I turned off the fan and air conditioner befor... Bilbao is a long thin conurbation along the lower reaches of the River Nervión, ending at the... The greenway. A more urban section. A view of some of the other roads which are intertwined with the greenway. It should have carried on here but it looks like I'll have to find another way. An old tank engine. Out of the shot are a few historic wooden carriages and another cyclists who has... A district called Zorrotza. I've come the wrong way. You can see part of an old railway track here. A skate park. Looking upstream along the Nervión towards the city centre. Bilbao. For some reason, cyclists here are meant to stay between the dotted lines, rather than at the edges ... The docks outside the Sea Museum. A dry dock. Bilbao. That's a big screen! Strange traffic on this road. Bilbao. Trains outside the main station. Those two signs are giving contradicting messages. Bilbao. Bilbao. Another tunnel. Again, this is just for bikes and pedestrians. Now I seem to be going through a tyre factory. This hotel has a good stock of wine. As usual, it's so hot and humid that I would have difficulty sleeping without a fan. I was pleased t... This is the breakfast room. It's not a buffet so i didn't get as much food as I usually would but I ... Amorebieta has a pleasant town centre, although I have no idea what that big statue is. I'm pretty s... Warnings for cyclists and warnings about cyclists. Amorebieta Here, one of those pedestrian and cycle paths ends at a roundabout junction with a normal road. A rest area on the way up a hill. I don't know how these paths came about. This one runs alongside the motorway, which is to the left ... Durango. A station at the entrance to a tunnel. Just a house which looks abandoned. I remember seeing recycling bins like this on a previous trip to Spain and Portugal. Portals of a motorway tunnel, seen from a bench where I am having a rest on the way up a very steep ... Zaldibar, surrounded by hills. The centre of Eibar is pedestrianised on Sundays but I've got plenty of time so I'll walk through it... I'm not sure why an estate agent has pavement seating. This place is called Eibar Bicycle Square. Some other statues in Eibar. The last part of today' journey, from Eibar to Elgóibar, is gently downhill along this river.... Elgóibar. I like that the shop on the left has the word "halal" in the Basque typef... Elgóibar. Elgóibar. I didn't do much cycling between last year's holiday and this year's, and I had forgotten that my ri... Unortunately, it turns out that the only things you can buy here now are some wheels and the shop. My bike, blending in. The reviews of this hotel weren't great. I only booked it because it's close to the bike shop. The m... There is a good selection of complimentary toiletries. The toothbrush might have been useful yesterd... Breakfast isn't included in my room rate here and based on how closed the pubic areas of the hotel w... "Just leftover food" Going up again. A tiny snake on the road. A donkey and a noisy quarry. This is actually the wrong way. There is cool dry air blowing out of this cave. I enjoyed standing in front of it. I wasn't at all certain that this was an actual public road. The beginning of it just looked like th... On each pedestal is a bone of some animal which used to live here in prehistoric times. I didn't try... Here's a bike shop. It won't be open until Wednesday. The small town of Deba. A few minutes ago, I could hear a whistling tune coming from this area. It s... Deba is extremely hilly and has public lifts. I haven't made any formal rules for what I'm allowed t... Deba. Oh, there are escalators too. The road has come out of the top of the town and is continuing to climb. This is the San Roke Chapel... This is a very steep hill. Fruit. Perhaps I shouldn't have come this way. The remaining 8 km will be downhill on proper tarmac. It's been a short day's ride but I didn't fanc... A rather squat church in a village called Itziar. This is the first chain hotel of this trip, and also the first which has bike parking. It even has t... Apart from this being almost the only hotel between Elgóibar and San Sebastian which was reas...