Bakio has a free camperstop that includes water and W/C. The camperstop is in a great location overlooking the town. Pretty quiet except for some surfer dudes here to enjoy the good waves in the bay. But the reason for our trip here is to visit the isolated hilltop monastery at Gaztelugatxe.
We started with a 2 km cycle ride to the car park and stayed off the main road – instead taking a tarmac road now closed to cars. We now know why. The gradient passed 20% in some places and we arrived at the *starting* point for the adventure as sweating, gibbering wrecks.
The adventure comprised walking down a 15% slope for about 2 km, then across a stone walkway a few meters above the sea, and then climbing about 300 steps onto an isolated island where a very small monastery has been built.
Suffice to say that everyone slept soundly that night. We got up so late the next day there was not even time to explore the town before setting off for Bilbao. But we did note that the north coast of spain is wonderful – we have toyed a few times with the Bilbao ferry and never got around to it.
