9 | Spain Trip

Wizz Air was holding a promotion on flights and the cheapest place to go from Warsaw was Santander, Spain. I had never heard of it or even knew where in Spain it was, but I let my friend Arch, who did the German LBAT last summer as well and has been in Munich studying since then, know, because we had been trying to find cheap flights to an inexpensive country to meet. Originally I had my sights on Romania, but he said he had always wanted to go to Spain, so we booked the flights. After doing some research, I got myself pretty pumped for the trip. Arch flew in and out of Bilbao, so we split our time between the two cities (really a town and a city).

Flying over the bay with a view of the Spanish coast 

We started our time in Santander, and, since I didn't land until pretty late on Friday, we just walked around until we found a good place for dinner and ate and caught up the first night. The next morning I was determined to see the sunrise at the harbor's lighthouse, Faro de Cabo Mayor. Well, surprise, the park that the lighthouse is in doesn't open until 9am. Probably something about not wanting people to fall off the cliffs in the dark. Whatever. We took a cab back to town and wandered around until the sun rose and some cafes opened for breakfast. Afterwards we made attempt 2 to get to the lighthouse. It is a beautiful area. We had both seen photos and knew it would be nice but were both incredibly surprised by how stunning it actually was. The photos really can't do it justice, because you can't smell the flowers (not a joke, there was a v nice floral smell everywhere) and hear the waves  break against the cliffs.

From there we walked back into town and did some more sightseeing... 

Catedral de Santander

Palacio de La Magdalena

We eventually tried to get to a funicular to get a good view of the town. Well, jokes on us, because we walked all the way to the top of the funicular.

There were a few outdoor moving sidewalks that made the trip to the top a little easier

View from the top

After checking out from the Airbnb, we made our way to the bus station to head to Bilbao. I had reserved both of our tickets ahead of time to ensure we could sit together. Being the goofy goober I am, I booked the tickets for the wrong day. After sprinting upstairs (bus station is underground, idk why) to buy new tickets, we were on our way to Bilbao! We got there around 8pm during a downpour, which we got to try to find our next Airbnb in, so that was fun. After watching Arch eat seafood paella meant for 2+ people, we turned in for the night to rest up from waking up at 5am that morning.

Bilbao is the home to one of the Guggenheim museums. Specifically the one that Frank Gehry designed. During high school in AP Art History we had to do a project on one of his buildings, and, like the true individual I am, I was the only one that didn't do it on the Bilbao Guggenheim, but I was still pretty familiar with the building. 

Despite neither of us being modern art enthusiasts, we decided to buy tickets, because how often are you going to find yourself in Bilbao? 

The only photo I took in this exhibit before I, in true Osman fashion, was told to not take photos

Watch Arch pretend to understand the explanation

We walked through all of this and didn't understand any of it

We then did something more our speed - another funicular. This time we did it in the correct direction and got some great views of the city and surrounding mountains. 

We wandered around the Old Town a bit before being drawn into a restaurant by their neon churros sign. We both got Spanish tortillas - I got tortillas de patatas, potatoes enclosed in scrambled eggs/an omelette. They are made in big rounds and displayed like cakes next to all of the sandwiches. When you order it, they cut a slice out and either put it in a baguette (like below) or serve it with a slice of bread. It is somehow so good. Much better than you would imagine eggs and potatoes to be. Of course, we then had our chocolate con churros. That's right. Not churros con chocolate. They know which part is more important. 

Tortilla de patatas

Arguably the best thing we had the whole trip

The next morning we headed our separate ways. I spent the majority of the morning trying to stay dry and warm in various cafes. However, once I got back to Santander, it started hailing. It had oddly already hailed a few times, but this time it was significantly larger and lasted much longer, so that was a fun bonus treat at the end of the trip!

All in all I'm really glad that we had the opportunity to go to these small towns in the Basque region of Spain. Neither are places that I would ever think to make a special trip all the way from the United States, but they were both beautiful, small towns.