Basque Country Bikepacking

Pintxos & Pueblos

Words & Photos: Jane Shearer

Pintxos (bar snacks) are a highlight of bikepacking the Basque Country, along with the great scenery, quiet roads and picturesque pueblos (villages). We cycled two loops in the Basque Country – the Vuelta de Vasco and the Iberica Norte – in search of mild spring weather within an easy ferry ride from England.

The Vuelta de Vasco took us east from Bilbao (where the Guggenheim art museum was one of my life’s top art museum experiences) along the coast to San Sebastian, south to the Aralar Natural Park, west through the Urbasa Plateau to Vítoria-Gasteiz, the capital of the Basque country. The Vuelta loop was on lightly trafficked country roads, gravel roads in the parks and a few very rocky and rough out-of-character sections of walking trail (we avoided some of these). Traffic in Spain, like much of Europe, is very considerate of cyclists.

As an aside, Chris was very embarrassed when he discovered he’d been calling Vítoria-Gasteiz ‘albuergue’ all the way around the loop. Chris speaks Spanish fluently and knows ‘albuergue means ‘hostel’. The problem was, when we looked at our route on MapOut (which otherwise has one of the best map depictions for phone app navigation), we saw a large red dot in Vítoria-Gasteiz labelled ‘Albergue Catedral’. Obviously the cathedral in ‘Albergue’.

However, when we reached the city we discovered the red dot was a place to stay – a hostel near the cathedral. Chris zoomed into MapOut and the text ‘Vitoria-Gasteiz’ appeared. He clutched his head and groaned, “What have the Basques been thinking when I called their capital city, ‘Hostel’?”

Cycling through the Basque Country highlighted the depth of feeling for Basque culture. We saw thousands of people at a festival of Basque dance in Ondarroa and watched a sea of red berets line dance their way around the square. Vítoria-Gasteiz was festooned with signs proclaiming ‘Herri Libre Bat’ (A Free City). There’s a whole museum focused on the ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), the armed Basque nationalist and far-left separatist organisation who killed around 900 people between 1959 and 2018 in their fight for Basque independence.

From Vítoria-Gasteiz we headed south to the famous wine region of the Rioja Valley and the Iberica Norte loop. We cycled past old villages dating as far back as the 1200s and even more ancient dolmen – standing stones from the Neolithic and early Bronze age erected 4000 to 2500 years ago. The town of Ezcaray was particularly pretty and is the gateway to the stark Sierra de la Demanda range, where we saw lots of spring flowers and dinosaur footprints.

We toured through increasingly desiccated hills to return to the Rioja valley and its attractive central town of Logroño. From there we cycled back to Vitoria-Gasteiz and had a last lovely ride over La Gorbea peak in the Gorbea National Park to reach Bilbao.

We mixed camping with paid accommodation on the routes, although most of our camping was in paid campgrounds. Wild camping is tolerated in the parks as long as you stay out of sight, set up late and leave early. We didn’t have issues finding places to stay, although it gets expensive at weekends if you book last minute. Good, or great, food was available at every village, of which there are plenty (even the Sierra de la Demanda didn’t require carrying food for more than a day). If you like a variety of bread, cheese and dried meat for lunch you will be very happy.

Central bar-cafés frequented by locals are a highlight of the small villages and we enjoyed trying out the variety of pintxos, including regular slices of tortilla for breakfast with excellent coffee (called excellent by Jane because she likes coffee that isn’t too strong and costs NZ$3). Water was rarely an issue, though this was likely helped by us cycling in spring. Northern Spain is best for spring or autumn cycling as it gets hot and dry in mid-summer.

The routes had very little hike-a-bike but some fiercely steep grades, particularly the Iberica Norte. Jane was very proud of herself for riding lots of 14-degree sections and one climb of 18 degrees. You will love these routes if you enjoy climbing because you get plenty of fun downhills on the far side. The temperatures in May turned out to be good – it was rarely very hot or very cold and we encountered little wind. We cycled around 1100km with 20,000m of climbing over 18 riding days and 3 rest days.

Northern Spain is an excellent bikepacking destination. We took the easier option of largely following documented routes rather than making up our own, but there’s plenty more you can do and it wouldn’t be hard to create your personal adventure. Hasta la vista northern Spain, I hope it’s soon.