Basque Coast Route

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Bilbao

   Bilbao was an industrial city for most of its life, an iron-ore and shipyard town on the Nervión river, and then in 1997 it reinvented itself with a titanium-clad museum that changed how cities think about culture. Frank Gehry's Guggenheim sits right on the riverbank, curved and glittering like a ship that has run aground, and its success gave the whole place a new confidence. You will notice that the older parts of town, the Casco Viejo with its seven original streets, are still very Basque, loud and unpretentious, with bars full of locals at lunchtime and counters stacked with pintxos.

   Read the complete Bilbao write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Bilbao is where the day begins. Next is San Juan de Gaztelugatxe.

2. 2. San Juan de Gaztelugatxe

   A stone causeway, a humpbacked bridge and 241 steps lead out to a small white hermitage on a rock in the Bay of Biscay, and the whole thing looks too tidy to be real. San Juan de Gaztelugatxe is a tiny island joined to the Basque mainland by a narrow bridge, topped by a chapel dedicated to John the Baptist, with a zigzag path climbing the rock in loops. Waves smash into the base, the sea is a deep green-blue, and the surrounding cliffs are covered in grass and heather. Gaztelugatxe means castle rock in Basque, and a fortress of some kind did once stand here, though the hermitage is the only thing left of it.

   Read the complete San Juan de Gaztelugatxe write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   San Juan de Gaztelugatxe comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Lekeitio.

3. 3. Lekeitio

   Lekeitio is the kind of fishing harbour that makes you slow down whether you meant to or not. It sits on the Bay of Biscay coast of Bizkaia, behind a sheltered cove, and it has a town centre of about seven thousand people packed between the sea and a ring of green hills. The first thing you notice is the island, San Nicolás, which lies just offshore and joins the mainland by a causeway at low tide, when the beach opens up and the whole town seems to walk out over the sand.

   Read the complete Lekeitio write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 77 km into the recorded legs you reach Lekeitio. Next is Zumaia.

4. 4. Zumaia

   Zumaia is where you go to look at time. On the cliffs just beside the town, at Itzurun beach, the sea has cut through layer after layer of tilted sedimentary rock known as flysch, thin bands of limestone and shale that stack up like the pages of a book and run into the water in long ridges. The rocks span a huge stretch of geological history, and geologists come from all over the world to study the layer that records the end of the Cretaceous, the period when the dinosaurs disappeared. That makes this one of the great natural clocks in Europe, and it is part of the Basque Coast Geopark.

   Read the complete Zumaia write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Zumaia, late in the day. Next is San Sebastian.

5. 5. San Sebastián

   San Sebastián, Donostia to the Basques, wraps itself around one of the loveliest urban bays in Europe. The Concha, a near-perfect shell of golden sand, is enclosed by two green hills, Urgull on the east with its old fort and statue of Christ, and Igueldo on the west, reached by a vintage funicular. A promenade with white balustrades runs the full length of the beach, and on a fine evening half the town seems to be walking it. In the nineteenth century the Spanish royal family made the town their summer retreat, which explains the elegant belle époque buildings along the seafront.

   Read the complete San Sebastian write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Finish at San Sebastian. That is the ride.