Day 2. Tuesday 3pm 16th July From the port of Bilbao to Carrion de los Condes
I’m writing from my desk at Hotel San Zoilo otherwise known as Hotel Real Monasterio. It was a four-hour ride over here from Port Bilbao but because I left so early I arrived at about 1.30 so it felt like just half a day.
I slept so much on the boat, soundly on the first night till nearly 8.30, a couple of hours later that day then, knowing that we would have an early start, I got to bed at 9pm and slept mostly till the announcement at 6.15. Its kind of a scramble to get a few dozen noisy motorcycles up the ramp and off the boat but, true to my Germanic gene I was first down on the vehicle deck and had my bike un-strapped, packed up, GPS on and ready to go before anyone else even arrived. There was a bit of handshaking and then one by one we launched ourselves up the ramp and off the boat and into the beautiful Spanish morning. The most popular bikes on this journey were cruisers and Harleys that make a racket. I just watched my video of the exit and my BMW sounds positively polite in comparison.
I got lost even before I got out of the port. Thinking that a barrier meant no exit, I rode round in a huge circle, when in fact it raised up as each person went through (what a metaphor for my life). Then it was up and over the mountains that lie just along the coast here and then on plains in a south-westerly direction, with one stop for coffee. The place was playing loud music FM. I am glad I bothered to struggle loading my route into the GPS yesterday as it lead me for the most part on lovely riding roads, all bathed with a beautiful sun. When I started the journey it was 15 degrees but pleasant; when I arrived it was 28. Spain seems to have a kind of parallel road system, unlike the UK. The new European-funded motorway runs a couple of hundred yards from the old road from A to B. There are not many cars on the motorway, a few trucks maybe, but there are no cars at all on the old road, which makes them so relaxing to ride on. This town Carrion de los Condes is a mixture of ugly new build, dilapidation and historic, the hotel being in the latter category – and a river runs through it - which local lads were jumping into. The hotel is part of a beautiful building, beautifully restored and the owners have tried to keep, or rather recreate or imagine, an atmosphere that suggests history and monasticism. Mostly it is rather nicely done but there is canned plainsong in the reception and bar and for a split second I thought it was real but which I imagine gets very tiresome after a while. The wooden shutters were closed when I unlocked the door to my completely darkened room. I couldn’t work out how to open the window but the room, to my surprise, has air-conditioning which I’ve resorted to sparingly. After settling in I asked Google the way to the local supermarket and walked down there for some provisions for my ride tomorrow. I plan to try dinner here tonight. Tomorrow is my day on the Picos de Europe, which draws many bikers to this part of Spain. My memory of my last visit in 2013, I think, was fog and scary hairpins. Lets see if I will be more at home six years later. I seem to have plotted two routes – one there and one back with relative ease – though its a total of nearly 5 hours riding. Then the following day I head over further West-North-West to a hotel between Lugo and Santiago de Compostela.
Click here for the next day's ride