6th June Sensible

 

6^th June ‘Sensible’  Geritza to Bilbao (Portugalete)  22km (plus 16)

 

Having already realised that 'my' experience on the Camino can ultimately only ever be 'mine', it also raises the question as to whether there is a right or wrong way that one could or some might say 'should' do the Camino.

There are those who do it hardcore, often starting not at what many perceive to be the official starting point but actually months and hundreds of miles before often in their own country. All luggage must be carried. Nothing must be pre booked. You simply walk on a wing and a prayer hopeful that there will be a bed for the night

Others have everything booked, often staying in private pensions or hotels rather than albergues, with their 'suitcases" being transported from A to B using a courier service. Each day they walk in their designed labelled outfits, carrying just a little day pack and each night they will dine in a local restaurant. Doing the "Glamino' I call it.

Some people do an entire Camino in stages over several years, others just do the most popular of all Camino routes which is the last 100km into Santiago in order to claim their certificate. Many stick on a recognised timetable whilst other spread the walk out over months. And let's remember you don't even have to walk it as people often cycle the route.

So really the only way to do the Camino is the "sensible' way, whatever that is for you, your situation, your context. It can be as hard-core as you like or it can be a Camino Light with as many treats and delights thrown in as you can muster. Today had always been planned as having a delight built in, mainly to keep me on my schedule. 

 So after a hard-core ( with a lot of it being on concrete) 22km walk to Bilbao with my two Italian friends, Ernesto and Stefano, passing  under the flight path of airplanes descending into the city,  we had planned to catch the tourist ferry the last part of the way, enjoying in the process a riverside view of the Guggenheim. 

Unfortunately it was full and with a further 16km to walk in the scorching sun, and my batteries on less than empty, with my delight having disappeared, I dispensed any feelings  of guilt and took the sensible option and escaped the bedlam that was Bilbao and jumped on the Metro out to Portugalete. And did anyone get up to offer this cream crackered pilgrim a seat...did they heck!

Portugalete is famous for the Bizkaia Bridge which has what I  thought was a pretty novel design for transporting people and vehicles from one side to the other. Turns out there are smaller versions of the same thing in Middlesbrough and Widnes. If someone had told me that before I  thought  of this trip it might have saved me quite a long walk.