If I had to evoke the landscapes of the Basque Country with one phrase, it would be red clay rooftops and lush green hills. While southern Spain chokes on dusty heat and dry plains, the north is a vibrant green.
Except in the fall, when those green hills turn yellow, brown and red. The colours aren't quite as vibrant as their Canadian counterparts, and the leaves turn about a month later than they do in at home. But fall colours are fall colours-you can't deny their prettiness
So that's why we took the back road to Vitoria-Gasteiz, a city of about 300,000 people, 45 minutes from Bilbao. The back road is longer than the highway but the extra time is made up for in pictoresque views as the hilly road winds through villages and farmland.
The road between Vitoria and Bilbao takes you uphill from sea level to about 500m, which isn't that much, but it means that there's a palpable temperature difference. On the drive into town we wondered out loud why people were walking around in gloves and scarves-and when we got out of the car we found out why. Brrrrrr. The only solution was to seek refuge in the finest of Vitoria's Chinese buffets.
When you visit most cities here, you go straight for the Casco Viejo. The architecture's medieval, the streets winding, and bars and cafes plentiful and atmospheric. Vitoria's old town surprised me in that it had a slightly different flavour than Bilbao's-much more wood in the architecture, and African and Mid-Eastern restaurants and groceries everywhere you turned. We wandered around for a long while before ending up in a bright, airy cafe that overlooked the Casco's expansive main plaza for a coffee to end off the afternoon.
The joy of Sunday afternoon day trips out of Bilbao is that they are as simple as that. There are so many sites nearby-you pop out, see what you want to see, have a bite to eat or a coffee, and you're back home by nightfall.
Except in the fall, when those green hills turn yellow, brown and red. The colours aren't quite as vibrant as their Canadian counterparts, and the leaves turn about a month later than they do in at home. But fall colours are fall colours-you can't deny their prettiness
So that's why we took the back road to Vitoria-Gasteiz, a city of about 300,000 people, 45 minutes from Bilbao. The back road is longer than the highway but the extra time is made up for in pictoresque views as the hilly road winds through villages and farmland.
The road between Vitoria and Bilbao takes you uphill from sea level to about 500m, which isn't that much, but it means that there's a palpable temperature difference. On the drive into town we wondered out loud why people were walking around in gloves and scarves-and when we got out of the car we found out why. Brrrrrr. The only solution was to seek refuge in the finest of Vitoria's Chinese buffets.
When you visit most cities here, you go straight for the Casco Viejo. The architecture's medieval, the streets winding, and bars and cafes plentiful and atmospheric. Vitoria's old town surprised me in that it had a slightly different flavour than Bilbao's-much more wood in the architecture, and African and Mid-Eastern restaurants and groceries everywhere you turned. We wandered around for a long while before ending up in a bright, airy cafe that overlooked the Casco's expansive main plaza for a coffee to end off the afternoon.
The joy of Sunday afternoon day trips out of Bilbao is that they are as simple as that. There are so many sites nearby-you pop out, see what you want to see, have a bite to eat or a coffee, and you're back home by nightfall.
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