A mere two weeks after my trip up to Bilbao with Jhosef, it was time for me to grab a train southwards and to the now very familiar lands of Murcia. I was once again traversing the Iberian peninsula, and I was once again bound for the Mediterranean coast in order to spend a few days with my auntie and uncle after I last saw them last summer.
The trip started with a near miss, as I arrived running into the station and boarding my train a mere two minutes before it left on its way. This was thanks to me getting quite distracted in a rather fancy supermarket, where I’d nipped in for a bottle of water and left with a bag full of snacks and a bottle of vermouth.
Relieved, and with the rare luck of having a whole two seats to myself, I spread out and took the time to work on my website on my laptop during the journey down. This, combined with aforementioned bag of delicious treats, made the five hours fly by; before I knew it I was stepping off at the station of Balsicas to be greeted by my aunt and uncle.
From there, the three of us headed to a local bar that they’d found, where we ordered a selection of dishes and a beer each to make the most of that Friday evening. Once full of garlic prawns and chopitos (little fried squids), we headed back to theirs to rest for the night before a busy Saturday begun.
A brisk morning walk to grab some bread was the perfect start to the weekend.
Me and my auntie kicked off the weekend with a walk up to the local shop to grab some supplies for breakfast, after which the three of us jumped in the car and down to the coast to visit a restaurant and seafront bar. There we were in luck, as the place was pretty quiet and they were sound testing for a dinner the following evening, which involved being serenaded to some of our favourite songs whilst enjoying a drink overlooking the water. It was pure holiday bliss!
From there we then headed further down the coast and to the mud baths, where I once again took the plunge and covered myself in the rather whiffy sulphur-rich goo. As I struggled to get the stuff to stick, I got chatting to two locals, who wound up talking to me for a good while – so long that my auntie had to come and drag me away so that we wouldn’t be late for lunch!
We dined down at a harbour that I’d never visited, which involved a journey winding through the nearby salt flats in order to reach the place. I figured that when in a harbour, I should probably order some seafood, and so my lunch was a delicious combination of seafood soup and fried dorada (a kind of fish which I have never heard of in English but who’s name is apparently the same as Spanish, where it means “golden”).
The sky looked threatening but held out for the most part.
With the day drawing to a close and having packed quite a lot into the morning, we spent the evening at the apartment, where I introduced my auntie to the wonders of those peeling face masks which don’t seem to do much for the skin but are a whole lot of satisfying fun to remove!
The next day began, once again, with a wander around the golf complex where my auntie and uncle live. We decided to stick around the place for the day, where I spent a good while in the pool and a little while reading my new book. I’d headed down to the poolside without a hat, however, and so some quick improvisation was called for…
Once the sun had begun to fade and I was all pool-ed out, we showered and prepared ourselves for an evening out. We’d decided to visit a place that my auntie and uncle had heard good things about down by the coast, and so headed back down to the Mar Menor to seek out the restaurant in question.
The meal we had certainly didn’t disappoint, from the small bites for starters to the delicious plate of pork in a creamy mushroom sauce that we ended with. I even got myself hooked on their buñuelos de bacalao, fried balls of cod with some other delicious stuff thrown in, and ended up ordering more!
Once I was quite merry after a couple of glasses of vermouth, we paid up and headed back for the car, stopping on the way to pick up a bag full of that staple of Spanish cuisine, freshly fried churros with a cup of gooey, thick hot chocolate. We sat down on a wall to eat these whilst overlooking the sea: the perfect end to another lovely day.
The next day saw us once again head out for lunch, stopping by an ancient spot in a little old town that served us a series of local dishes as part of their daily menu. From there, we headed out shopping, as I was keen to grab a few bits from the British supermarket to share with my friends and colleagues here in Madrid. I do think my taste is now changing however, as the Kettle crisps that I used to laud so readily now seem a bit greasy and cheap to me…
That evening, a couple of my auntie and uncle’s friends nipped over for a drink, and we had a lovely evening chatting away until late as I finished off that bottle of vermouth that I’d brought down with me and which had nearly cost me my train journey!
Through sheer damn luck and the willpower to down two pints of water before heading off to bed, I awoke to spend my last day without any kind of heavy head. Not wanting this last day to be spent faffing around until my train left at 4:30pm, me and my auntie headed down to La Encarnación, a lovely hotel and restaurant down by the seafront. There we had a quick breakfast before heading back into the town of Los Alcázares, where I picked up a few last minute bits and bobs before heading back to the apartment to pack.
Before bundling myself onto the train back up to Madrid, however, there was one last tradition to be honoured. Before heading for the station, we seemingly always stop for lunch beforehand in a little town called Roldán, and this time was no different. Meeting up with more of my auntie and uncle’s friends, we enjoyed a very filling meal which always keeps me very satisfied and very dozy during the long journey back home.
This wasn’t the last highlight of my trip down to Murcia, however, as I had quite the surprise on the train back to Madrid. As the train crawled out of Murcia’s train station, I suddenly felt someone grab my neck, and turned around to find myself face-to-face with Borja, an ex colleague from back from when I first started at Erretres! What are the chances?
My journey down south concluded with this lovely surprise and a quick catch up with Borja on the way out of the train station, the cherry on the cake after four days of relaxation and catching up with my auntie and uncle. Needless to say that, as ever, my little holiday was great fun, and I’ve to extend many thanks to my auntie and uncle for putting up with me and my every whim during the time I spent with them.
I now look forward to being able to nip down to visit Murcian shores once again, most probably once I’m all vaccinated up to the nines. Until then, ¡chau!
Today’s update comes from the place I actually sat down and wrote the entirety of my last blog post – Bilbao. This isn’t the first or even the second time that I’ve visited this lovely city in the north of Spain, but it felt like a whole new experience as we had a full four days to explore and tickets booked to visit the Guggenheim – but we shall get to that in due course. For now, let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start…
Our journey began with a somewhat lengthy five-hour bus journey which had us land in the Basque Country’s largest city at around 9pm. From there, we headed straight for our hotel in order to drop off our stuff and having a quick shower. As our trip had been a last-minute decision, however, we hadn’t even thought to check what the local coronavirus restrictions were like, so I checked that there wasn’t a curfew in place before heading out.
Thankfully there was no curfew in place, but to our great dismay we discovered that all restaurants and bars had to close at 10pm. Regardless, we thought we would still be able to bag something to eat, and headed out just after this cut-off time.
Well, this turned out to be a rather optimistic assessment, as we were faced with shutter after closed shutter. Thankfully though, a lady I spoke to on the street gave us a tip, telling us to knock on the shutters of one of the kebab shops. To our surprise, the shutter opened, a guy took our order, and we were then told to wait around the corner in order to draw attention from the slightly illegal sale of kebabs after 10pm. Me and Jhosef were quite giddy as we waited for our evening meal – of all the naughty kebabs I’ve ever had, this was by far the naughtiest!
After inhaling our kebabs in the hotel room, we headed off to sleep, waking up with plenty of energy to explore the day after. Our outing began with breakfast in a local bar, where we had our first taste of pintxos (also spelled pinchos elsewhere in Spain), which are little portions of food which are usually served atop a little piece of bread. These are a staple of Basque cuisine, and can be found in every bar that you may happen across in Bilbao.
The Txabarri Jauregia palace looked lovely even under grey skies.
We then headed to the historical centre of the city, which took us across the river, where we stopped to snap some photos of the central train station and the waterside basement below. In order to bag some photographs at interesting angles, we then snuck down one of the perilously slippy concrete staircases which lead to the water’s edge, taking care not to be hurtled headfirst into its murky depths by the green slime that covered the lower half of the descent.
The concrete stairs were the perfect place for a grungy photo shoot.
Once firmly in the centre of the oldest part of the city, we stopped for a couple more pintxos and a drink at a little bar. Freshly energized, we crossed the river once again, exploring another area of the city that we stumbled across by pure chance whilst looking for somewhere to eat something more substantial for lunch.
This quest for a restaurant wasn’t all that fruitful, however, and we wound up accidentally looping back on ourselves and back near the hotel. The abundance of 1.50€ pintxos had our back though, and we grazed on a few more of them in another bar before heading back to the hotel via a nearby park for a nap before our evening’s travels.
After our siesta we headed down to a nearby riverside spot that Jhosef had stumbled across on his morning jog which is famous for its huge red crane. From there we followed the river’s meandering all the way to the infamous architecture of the Guggenheim, where we headed back into the centre to scout out something to eat.
Before we even stepped foot in our chosen restaurant, we had a cheeky couple of pintxos at a neighboring bar, where we got chatting to the lady at the bar about life in Bilbao. By this point, the two of us had settled into the rhythm of the city quite nicely, and this only continued as we headed to our evening’s restaurant and dined on bao and a delicious duck and mushroom dish.
After rushing out of the restaurant in order to squeeze in one last drink at another bar before the 10pm closing time, we sauntered back to the hotel full of good food and even better patxaran (also spelled pacharán, a delicious alcohol made from sloe berries). On the way, however, we stumbled across something that had me all excited and took me back to my childhood: an artwork made of various different models of streetlight.
I should explain, for those who don’t know me, that I have been obsessed with lights from the moment I began speaking (my first word was light thanks to my grandma). Here it’s also worth noting that as a young child, when presented with a painting kit, the first thing I painted was a motorway in order to then carefully paint its accompanying streetlights. I was also once gifted a plastic train set, and managed to lose every piece except the precious three streetlights that it came with… I think you get the idea.
Me and Jhosef lay down in the grass looking up at the lights and resting off some of the food for a good while, before returning to the hotel in preparation for our second day’s main activity: a visit to the Guggenheim.
The morning began, as was quickly becoming habit, with a coffee and a round of pintxos. We then made the short direct journey to the world renowned art museum, grabbing our tickets and heading into the central atrium of the Frank Ghery masterpiece for the first time. As I said, I’ve been in Bilbao twice before, and I’d visited the museum’s gift shop on both occasions, but I’d never actually had the chance to see the art within.
The museum was absolutely fascinating, with various works catching my eye, but I shan’t go into too much detail. I’ll just leave it at this: it’s very much worth a visit, no matter what kind of art interests you. Hell, even if you think that art isn’t for you, there’s some really interesting and beautiful sights to be appreciated within. To prove this, I’ll leave a few pictures that I took during our visit:
Leaving the museum behind after a good while snooping around the gift shop (I do love a good gift shop), we headed back into the city and to a restaurant that we’d booked to have lunch, Monocromo. The quirky little restaurant with it’s open kitchen and specialty vermouths (one of my favourite tipples) was a hit with the two of us, and we thoroughly enjoyed the seafood, drinks, and huge dessert that were placed before us.
We left the place absolutely stuffed, and so headed back to the hotel to sleep it all off. Jhosef was particularly exhausted, and so whilst he slept I headed off for a solitary wander and to buy some snacks lest we be caught out again by the 10pm closing time.
I’m not a fan of this skyscraper which towers over the city, but this couple didn’t mind.
As I returned to the hotel with my bag full of edible goodies, I noticed that the night sky was fading into a particularly beautiful sunset, and so made a substantial detour in order to witness it from the banks of the river. This didn’t disappoint at all, as I was treated to a view over the infamous red crane and the silhouetted by a gorgeous celestial explosion of pink and orange.
The sunset was particularly striking behind the big red crane.
After spending that evening munching on crisps and watching the second half of a Batman film in the hotel room, we were once again on the move the day after. For breakfast, we’d arranged to meet up with Jhosef’s friend, Sergio. We headed to a local bakery for some pastries, chatted for a good while over coffee, and I thanked him for the restaurant recommendation from the day before.
When Sergio had to dash off to work, Jhosef and I then made our first descent into the tunnels of Bilbao’s metro system, catching the (wrong) train to the coast to spend a day in Getxo. After switching trains to one that was actually going where we wanted to go, we arrived in Algorta, a lovely coastal town which we’d been told was famed for its beautiful old port.
A quick wander round in the intense sun (an odd occurrence in the north of Spain) was all it took to tire us out, and so we perched ourselves on the terrace of a tiny bar and ordered some drinks and a bite to eat. The food came in the form of gildas, little cocktail sticks holding delicious combinations of fish, olives, and pickled vegetables, amongst other ingredients. Jhosef was a big fan of these little sticks of goodness, and so we grabbed ourselves another round before heading down to the old port area of the town.
The old port was absolutely beautiful, with quirky little houses lining the sloped streets which led to the waterfront. On the way down to the port itself, we passed by a restaurant with a gorgeous open terrace shaded by a smattering of trees, and decided that we’d return there for some lunch after catching a glimpse of the sea.
The port itself was lovely, but rather small, and so we didn’t spend too long exploring the area – a decision made easier by the fact that the sun was now directly above us and threatening to burn my poor English skin. I avoided the otherwise guaranteed sunburn with the aid of an umbrella – I must have been a right sight to behold…
After a spot of crab spotting we began to make our way back to the quaint little terrace I mentioned, where we sat down for one of the most drawn-out lunches I’ve ever experienced. In this little village time seemed to slow, and we probably spent about four hours eating, drinking, and chatting, both to each other and the friendly waitress who served us a series of delicious local dishes.
Eventually we finally decided to move on with the rest of our plans, prompted to do so partly by the breeze that had picked up and the smattering of clouds that had begun rolling in. Not wanting to miss our only opportunity to stroll along the shoreline, we headed down to the neighbouring beach and spent a good half hour crossing its entire width. Whilst Jhosef dipped his feet in the surf, I engaged in a spot of beach combing, bagging myself a couple of shells which I now have accompanying my many plants in my flat.
Once we’d reached the other end of the beach and after a failed attempt at catching a bus, we resigned to walk the rest of the path down to the estuary of the river that winds inland and through Bilbao. Here I wanted to get up close and personal with the Bizkaia Bridge, the world’s first suspension bridge which is still in operation, spanning the width of the Nerbioi River just before it reaches the sea.
To get a better view of the bridge, Jhosef and I crept down yet another concrete stairwell which led straight into the choppy waters of the estuary. After a near miss involving the wake of a passing boat, we climbed back up to safety and headed to the bridge’s viewing platform, taking a few more photos before heading back to the metro bound back to Bilbao – stopping along the way for a couple of pintxos and a glass of wine, of course.
That evening, our last in this great city, was rather eventful. After a day on our feet we weren’t up for an evening searching out a restaurant, and so nipped into a bar next door to the hotel to dine on some more pintxos. Having neglected to check the weather forecast beforehand, we decided to sit outside on the roadside terrace – and I’m sure you can imagine what happened next.
After being blessed with such a sunny day up to that point, it was high time that the Basque weather pulled one of its usual tricks and changed within a blink of an eye. In an instant the evening heat gave way to a raging thunderstorm, with the downpour soaking us to the skin but doing very little to dampen our spirits: rather than run back inside, we decided to enjoy the rain, going so far as to film a parody of the music video from that early 2000’s classic “All The Things She Said”!
Now absolutely drenched, we headed up to our room after paying the very bemused owner of the restaurant who had observed our antics, and all too soon our last day in the city came around. With our bus back to Madrid scheduled to leave at 4pm, it was a bit of an odd day to go out and do too much for fear of arriving late at the bus station, but we managed to make the most of the time we had anyway.
Our morning began with a walk down the other side of the river, passing behind the contorted architecture of the Guggenheim and taking us all the way back to the old town. Once there, we explored some of the streets which we hadn’t seen during our first quick visit, and nipped in a sweet shop in order to buy some treats for friends, colleagues, and family back in Madrid.
We then headed back to the hotel after one last cheeky vermouth, having decided that it was a good idea to have lunch in the restaurant by the hotel as we could pick up our bags from next door and make the short journey up to the bus station when the time came. We were treated to a delicious full menú del día on the same terrace where we had been drenched the night before, topped off with a glass of wine and some lovely ice cream to keep us satisfied through the long journey back to Madrid.
With the last bill paid and our bags recovered from the hotel’s storeroom, the two of us then had to speed our way up to the bus station, arriving just in time to be two of the last people to board the bus. Our sizable lunch worked just perfectly to put us to sleep during the journey back, and so we were back in the capital before you can say pintxo – which, if you’ve been wondering all this time, is pronounced pin-cho.
All that’s left to say is that I had an absolutely lovely time in Bilbao – but I think that my admiration for the place has been pretty evident throughout this post. Thanks to Jhosef for suggesting the idea of a city break and then putting up with me for the four days that we travelled together, and also to my colleague María, a native of the region without whose recommendations we wouldn’t have thought to do half the amazing things we did nor order some of the delicious local dishes that we sampled.
At the end of my last post, I speculated whether I’d be able to travel around a little bit this summer now that Spain is lifting restrictions after the central government deactivated the state of emergency a couple of weeks ago. Well, it would seem that my prayers have been answered, as I start writing this blog post sat at a desk in a lovely hotel room in Bilbao, where the grey clouds have finally parted and it looks like we’re going to be treated to a day of sun.
Stories from my current trip up to the north of Spain will, however, have to wait until the next blog post, as we’ve some catching up to do — or should I say I do, as I’ve had my blog somewhat abandoned for the last few weeks…
We pick things up after my week of little birthday celebrations, and another week at work which was punctuated by some lovely evenings with friends. One evening I met up with Sara and Jhosef at a lovely little terrace near my house, where we were treated to a generous selection of tapas before ordering two huge plates of delicious grub to share — calamares (calamari rings) and huevos rotos con jamón (chips with cured ham and fried eggs).
Another evening brought with it another birthday celebration, this time for Hugo. For this, four of us headed to an Italian restaurant that I knew Hugo was a fan of, and tucked into some delicious courses (including a dessert that came recommended by a colleague) in between lots of laughs and some particularly lovely white wine.
I’ve always been a big fan of prawns with spicy tomato sauce.
With my belly full of a rich and spicy tomato and prawn pasta, I hopped on one of the city bikes to head back home, passing by some of the places that I had first gawked at when I first stepped foot in Madrid all the way back in 2015. I passed by the Instituto Cervantes, the Banco de España (Spain’s national bank), Cibeles, and the southern train station, Atocha. Upon arriving home, I set the lights to a relaxing purple colour combination and unwinded for the evening with a book.
I mention the book because I’ve recently gotten back into reading in a big way, having finished three books in the past couple of weeks. Without wanting to turn this post into a book review (I used to hate having to write those in primary school), I’ll quickly detail the experience as I think they are three very interesting pieces:
The first took the form of a novel I received through the post as part of an anonymous book exchange I participated in on Instagram. I’d done this on a whim, doubting that much would come of it, but I actually received two novels in the end! The first of these was this one, Los renglones torcidos De Diosby Torcuato Luca de Tena. As you can tell by the title, this was a Spanish novel, and represented the first time that I’d ever read a full novel in my second language. It wasn’t an easy read, both because of the need for constant pauses to look up unfamiliar flowery terminology and because of the subject matter: life inside an old psychiatric hospital. The hauntingly beautiful title, which translates roughly as “God’s twisted lines of text”, is a great window into the contents of the novel, for which Luca de Tena himself feigned mental illness in order to live an unfiltered, first-hand experience within a psychiatric hospital. This exposure shines through in Luca de Tena’s ability to captivate and maintain dramatic suspense until the very last page. Unfortunately there’s no English version, but I’d highly recommend it to any hispanohablantes out there.
The second book took the form of a biography. I’m not usually too fond of biographical works, but I made an exception here after watching a short documentary on YouTube on the life of this extraordinary woman. The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disasterby Sarah Krasnostein documents the turbulent and often heart-wrenchingly sad life of Sandra Pankhurst. The book explores — with often blurry or incomplete details thanks to Pankhurt’s possibly trauma-induced amnesia — her early years as a mistreated adopted child, her subsequent transition to a woman, and then her eventual role as the founder of a company dedicated to trauma cleaning. Trauma cleaning, for those in the dark, involves cleaning up places where trauma has occurred, such as the scenes of a murder, suicide, or the homes of hoarders. Although this book again details with a subject matter which makes for little easy reading, it was refreshing to learn about something which is often readily overlooked by society and the compassion —born surely of an ability to empathise due to her personal experience of trauma— with which Pankhurst handles each client and case.
Lastly we have the third book, and this time we find ourselves dealing with an equally obscure but much more light-hearted topic: grammar and punctuation. Written by an ex-proofreader from The New Yorker, Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queenby Mary Norris was a lovely light-hearted deep dive into the use of language and the punctuation with which we pepper our sentences in a manner which — as Norris would probably attest to — is often rather slapdash. I was seduced into picking up this gem of a book by the “Comma Queen” part of its title, as I’m often lauded by friends as being quite the fusspot with the use of commas. Needless to say, Norris didn’t disappoint, delving into the mechanisms of the English language (albeit in American English, which I’m not a huge fan of) in a light-hearted yet often very informative manner.
I’m now on another book, but I shall conclude this little book-club-esque section for now for fear of boring any of you who may not be interested. If you are, however, be sure to let me know. Maybe it could become something I write more about on here.
Anyway, let’s get back to more mischief from Madrid. Just one day after our evening out for Hugo’s birthday, I found myself cycling down to Luis’ flat with an unopened bottle of vermouth for some drinks and nibbles with him and a couple of friends. Sitting on his lovely private terrace, the four of us shared anecdotes and laughs over some delicious plates of jamón (cured ham) and cecina (cured beef), all before a quick dance to burn off some of the alcohol which was flowing freely.
Just 48 hours later and I was back with Luis again, this time taking the metro up to the north of the city and to Sunday Service, an event organised by my colleague Blanca to launch her line of custom handmade jewellery. The inauguration of Tony Blanco Jewelry took place in a photography studio, where we enjoyed pizza and beers and caught up with both old friends and new, as well as having the change to have our photo taken or bag ourselves a new tattoo – both of which I passed on for now.
After Sunday Service, me and Luis were joined by my colleague Maria for a couple more cheeky drinks and a spot of lunch in the city centre. After being joined by a couple more of Luis’ friends, Maria headed off and the rest of us sauntered down to Chueca, where we continued our afternoon of drinks with some gin and tonics.
This afternoon of drinks would have been all fun and games if it weren’t — as eagle-eyed readers amongst you will have already deduced from the name of the Tony Blanco event — on a Sunday. The shenanigans left me with a heavy head on Monday morning, but that had cleared up by the evening, when I dragged Jhosef out for a bike ride up through a green corridor in the north-west of the city.
Grabbing two of the motor-assisted BiciMad city bikes, the two of us followed the western length of Río Manzaneres, the river that runs through Madrid. This led us to a spot that I’d discovered by myself a while back, where we stopped for a moment before heading further onward, eventually arriving at a bridge which spans the main northern motorway out of the city. Here we stopped for a while, taking in the views of the city and the sunset over to the west, before turning back for home.
At home I had a random nostalgia trip and craving for — of all things — a hot chocolate from Costa Coffee. Although Costa may not be the height of the UK’s culinary offerings, I set about whipping myself up a concoction from pure cocoa powder, milk, sugar, squirty cream (which probably has a technical name but I’ve always called it that), and a sprinkling of cinnamon powder. Between my hot chocolate, the mood lighting that I’ve wired my flat up with, and a face mask kit from Lush, I had myself quite the evening of pampering.
Last weekend saw me continue with this theme of pampering, as me and Bogar headed back to Hammam after we’d last gone just before the pandemic erupted here in Spain. We returned to these Arab-style baths to take a dip in the thermal pools, sweat out our woes in the steam room, and have our stresses rubbed away during a relaxing massage. Once we’d been thoroughly revived, we cycled back to our neighbourhood, where we stopped at our favourite local bar for a delicious meal. Never was there a more perfect way to end a weekend!
All this brings us to just last week, which passed by relatively quickly, thanks to the combination of a few busy days in the office with the knowledge that I had a four-day weekend ahead to travel up to Bilbao in northern Spain with Jhosef. As I said at the beginning of the post, I’m still here in the hotel as I write this, although I’m sure I won’t muster up the energy to edit and upload the photos until I’m back in Madrid.
For now, I’m going to enjoy the two days I’ve got left here in this lovely city, and you just know that I’ll be back as soon as possible with some stories from the trip and a generous smattering of photos that I’ve taken around this quirky place. Until then!
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