A short walk, 21km with 630m elevation, but a busy day. Lene flew back to Copenhagen, so we walked to the airport bus, said our goodbye’s and I walked 500m further to the bus stop for Guernica, where I had ended up on Sunday (day 21) before meeting Lene.
It was 10.30 by the time I reached Guernica and started walking – a couple of hours after the majority of walkers had started. Guernica is synonymous with the Spanish Civil War. Franco had the town bombed by the Germans in 1937, opening up for Franco taking Bilbao. The town was flattened and led to Picasso’s famous Guernica painting, displayed in Madrid.
I didn’t walk around the town or go to the museum, but I did see a plaque dedicated to Herbert Southworth, an American author who specialised in the Spanish Civil War and wrote articles pulling apart Franco’s propaganda. He wrote a book entitled Guernica, Guernica and was a cult figure in Spain.
It was a nice walk, mostly along forest paths and small back roads where lizards greatly outnumbered the cars that passed by. It was beautiful weather, sunny and warm and I made good progress. I caught up with two Danish girls whilst they were taking a break. They had tired feet and I told them that they should always take their shoes off whenever taking a rest. I always feel much better when I do it. I also met a group of Taiwanese, trying to work out when the next bus would come and which bus would take them where. I helped them understand the timetable at the bus stop. I hope they got on the right bus.
Political messages were predominant today. I have included some in the blog. I reached Larrabetzu at 2pm, after passing a factory producing wooden pallets of all shapes and sizes. Many pilgrims were eating lunch at a restaurant at the square. I was tempted as I only had 4 more kilometers to walk, but decided to press on.
I reached Lezama by 3pm but had to wait 30mins for the bus back to Bilbao. (I walked from Lezama to Getxo on day 22). Whilst waiting, two Danish men turned up and we chatted for a while.
Back in Bilbao, I picked up my bag at the hotel and again had wait 30 minutes for a bus to Getxo – and the bridge with the gondola.
After a shower, I took a walk around town. All the bars are packed with people enjoying the good weather and watching Bilbao playing football – they are not impressed, although the were happier in the second half when Athletic Bilbao scored two goals.