Final prep - 26th July - part 1

Woke up at 4am - fully awake. Kim too. She makes peanut butter toast while I write yesterday's blog. As the sun comes up we can see it is raining lightly. That's ok,  we aren't in a hurry. We have to go to Decathlon for some last minute hiking stuff, and it doesn't open till 10. 

We check out at 8:30 and our hosts have not yet awoken. We head to a local café for a coffee shot of alertness. 

Saving our legs we tram to the city market via the old town. As we pass the Guggenhium we realise we even didn't taken a photo.  It's an iconic building and we love it and I think it's etched in our memory.

We alight the tram opposite the city market. Two stories of fruit, veg, seafood, cured meats, cheeses, and butchers. They even have an on site cooking school. I wish we had time to learn some of the local specialities...next time.

The reason we are here is for breakfast. There are 3 or 4 cafés for us to satisfy our hunger. We each have a breakfast croissant filled with jamon, egg, tomato and cheese,  a traditional spanish tortilla, and a cafè con lechè. Yum! (€5.20 each)

Decathlon is now open. It is just down the road from the market. We buy walking sticks, bike pants for Darren (somehow misplaced already - not pretty but will prevents chaffing) a bum bag (but worn on the front on a guy... does that make it a penis pack?) and some hydrolite. 

Now hopefully ready for the 25 days of walking ahead. We go to the train station as apparently the 8 km out of Bilbao is along the river and mostly industrial, so are not keen on that being our initial experience. Instead we get a train to Portugaletes at the river mouth.