After the excellent seafood lunch we set about exploring those parts of the town that remained to be seen. This wasn't going to take long because it is only a small town after all. So we took our time and walked along the sea wall on one side of the town and then crossed over and walked along the sea wall on the other side of the town.
There was a large museum - Museo Cristóbal Balenciaga but it was about fashion and I have zero interest in that and it was rather expensive so we skipped that.
As the afternoon and the day visitors simultaneously slipped away we walked the once busy main street looking for a table in the sun, difficult in a narrow gorge like street but suddenly there was an opportunity and we bagged it and stayed there for as long as the shadows stayed away.
After a full day Kim was beginning to struggle with her back pain so when the sun had gone we retreated back to the accommodation and while Kim rested I walked and checked the car ahead of departure the next morning. The tyres looked fine but I put some more air in them just to make sure. Explosively over inflated now.
The accommodation was next to the San Salvador Church, the biggest and most impressive building in the town but up until now the doors were securely locked but on my way back it was suddenly open so I pushed open the door and went inside.
I cannot really explain why I like visiting churches, I think it goes back to childhood holidays because dad always liked to visit a church or two, I don't think he was especially religious or interested in architecture but I realised later that crucially for dad they were free to visit.
San Salvador Church turned out to be a fascinating place built on several levels with connecting stairs and sloping floors. I could have stayed longer but it turned out that it was only open for a private visit and suddenly a man came to lock up. Luckily he saw me wandering about and asked me to leave. Good job he saw me as I might have ended up in there all night long because my mobile phone was on the bedside cabinet in the hotel room, Kim had no idea where I was and there was little chance of rescue until the Priest turned up tomorrow morning for Sunday services.
Later we returned to the seafood bar on the headland and had the fish meal that we had promised ourselves. We debated plans for the last day, we had a mind to return to Bilbao but then we remembered that it was Basque Country election day and we worried about getting caught up in marches and demonstrations so we agreed that it would be safer to find an alternative. We decided to take the coast road and stop off somewhere for lunch.
We stayed at the bar as the sun started to slip away and enjoyed the sunset and then as a chill descended and local people buttoned up their jackets made our way to the hotel for our final night in Northern Spain.
The following morning we took the coast road west intending to stop somewhere for lunch. Every town we arrived at was massively busy so we carried on until we arrived in Leikeitio where finding a parking spot was a real challenge. It seems that everyone in this part of Northern Spain goes into town for Sunday lunch.
We eventually bagged a table in the sun and ordered pintxos, our last of the week, did a bit of walking and then set back off again.
On the way to Bilbao I thought it important to visit the town of Guernica because this was the scene of one of the defining moments of modern history and I thought we should be able to say that we had been there. Today it is an unremarkable and not particular attractive town and this is because on April 26th 1937 it was almost completely destroyed by Hitler's Luftwaffe.
Guernica was bombed at the invitation of General Franco because the Basque Country was a stronghold of the Republicans. It was of no real strategic military importance but Franco wanted to end the war in the north as quickly as possible and to do so he needed to take Bilbao. The raid was the first example of blanket bombing of civilian targets and it gave the Luftwaffe the opportunity to try out new terror tactics which caused widespread destruction, two-thirds of the town was destroyed, and resulted in many civilian deaths.
The bombing is the subject of a famous anti-war painting by Pablo Picasso and in 1999 the German Government formally apologised to the citizens of Guernica for the raid.
The original painting Picasso painting of 1937, within weeks of the bombing and the death of hundreds of civilians in Guernica toured the world raising awareness of the horrors of the Spanish civil war. It is now regarded as one of the most powerful pieces of pacifist propaganda art and, too fragile to travel, is held permanently at the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid.
We didn't stop in Guernica, to drive through was sufficient, and we carried on towards Bilbao.
At the airport we returned the hire car and I explained about the tyre issue. The man who booked it in seemed unconcerned, took a brief look and said that they looked OK and then pressed a button on the dashboard to confirm that they were OK and that was it. I know that the next renter that gets that car will have exactly the same problem after fifty miles or so..
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