Well, besides drinking. If you get up at a decent time, the Sunday morning activity par excellence is to meet up with some friends to potear. Poteando on Sunday morning doesn't differ all that much from they way you'd potear any given evening. It's getting together with friends for a couple of drinks and pintxos but in a way that's so unique to Bilbao. Order your drinks at the bar inside a tiny, narrow pub, then bring them out into the street, which becomes a defacto extension of the bar. Adults stand around and chat, kids play together in the square or at the other end of the street, pintxos are nibbled, and once glasses are empty the ritual repeats itself at another bar down the street. On Sunday morning from about 11 to 3, people get together in different areas of Bilbao such as Plaza Nueva (above)for a drink leading up to Sunday's centrepiece: a giant lunch entre familia.
But if Saturday night was a late one (as they often are) and you don't get yourself out and about in time to potear, you've missed your window as many bars and restaurants close up after lunch. All stores, including supermarkets, are closed, so there is no shopping or errands to be run. Sunday's offerings are narrowed down to football and the movies. If Sunday's football games don't suit you, then your remaining entertainment option is the movies, which are often sold out on Sunday nights for that very reason.
Walking, be it urban styles along the ría, or up into the hills surrounding the city in typical mendizale fashion, is also a Sunday activity that can help you deal with Saturday night's excesses. Unless it happens to be downpouring all day, as it was yesterday. The formula for Bilbao Sundays--family, friends and football--suffers when heavy rains make for soggy poteando and miserable mountain climbing. And then Bilbao Sundays can seem...long.
Happy Monday!
No comments:
Post a Comment