After a somewhat whirlwind tour of northern Spain we are now back in the UK.
Had hoped to be welcoming the Seattleites tonight but alas their flight out last night was cancelled so we shall see them for breakfast instead. Fly well Cap’ Hill persons.
They did arrive, only twenty hours late, very tired but enthusiastic.
Something went wrong with my blogging abilities, sorry about that. I think I posted the same blog twice, deleted the wrong thing and the Ortuella post vanished.
Here it is again !
Don’t laugh but we are in Ortuella or to be more exact in the industrial estate of Ortuella which is a small town about twenty minutes outside of Bilbao. Our GPS on the phone guided us to another hotel with the same name in the middle of a housing development (council estate) set on a very steep hillside with exceptionally narrow streets, we received some very strange looks. Undaunted we continued into Bilbao driving up and down Bilbao Avenue looking for our booked hotel, for about an hour. Finally resorted to stopping at the Novotel block for advice to be advised that the best solution would be to hire a taxi and follow it to our lodging. Poo Baa said our pilot, we are better than that, so back out of town we cruised. There had been a mention of a fuel station, we saw one, turned in and there was the hotel, the hotel Ortuella. Brand new, restaurant, bar, tables and chairs outside with charming views of……….the industrial estate. Abandoning bags and car we caught a cab to the Guggenheim, what a treat, but more of that in a little bit. We did the tour, pottered in the Old Town and got a cab back to Ortuella.
Oh look, it’s all closed up, shutters over the bar door, shutters over the restaurant, oh deleted expletive. Hmm. Ok, back into town to find the supermarket, great idea except, we had no clue where to find same. Drove about a bit, parked, walked around, found all sorts of unsuitable retailers, bead merchant, dress shops, toy shops, but no food, wine nor beer. Finally found a fruit shop where we splurged on four bottles of wine, two of water and some bananas all for the sum of five pounds (seven fifty US). Knowing we would then find the supermarket we did, fifty yards from where we parked. Sigh.
Returned to hotel where we will enjoy the bread and cheese we bought in Santander earlier.
No major sense of humour failures and we are quite content with our bananas, bread, cheese, wine and the enchanting view of the industrial estate !
Our hotel
notreallytravelling 