Where to start Norte route , landing in Bilboa?

[Ria Mattheus]

Hi There,
We 2 females from South Africa , plan to do the Norte route in Aug 2012. We will fly from Madrid to Bilboa. Where can we join the Norte route? Perhaps from the airport(Bilboa) or must we go into Bilboa town to get on the route?? And can somebody give us a name of a good English book on the Norte route? Thanx for the wonderful forum!!

 

[Arn]

Hi and welcome to the Forum and the Class of 2012.

Here's a quick answer...if you look at the map of the Norte above, you'll see More from the CSJ website, their guide and pictures. Take a look at those links and you'll not only answer your questions but become more familiar with the Camino del Norte.

Tot Siens

Arn

 

[peregrina2000]

Hi, Ria,
The Camino del Norte passes right through the center of Bilbao. When I walked it about 6 years ago, the arrows took us out of Bilbao, west through some industrial suburbs, through the charmless suburb of Baracaldo, and finally along a river and through a huge isolated falling apart apartment building that was filled with people -- it appeared to have been abandoned and reclaimed, because there were no windows, no evidence of any attention at all, lots of families, children, small fires burning, laundry hanging, etc. The few flashy BMWs driving down and quickly leaving while we walked as fast as possible left us with the impression that illegal deals were probably going on. Anyway, we wound up safely in Portugalete where we spent the night in a hotel. Others told us they avoided that stretch by taking the metro from Bilbao to Portugalete directly.

We spent two nights in Bilbao to explore the city, and I highly recommend that. It's got a very pretty historic core, the gracious late 19th century boulevards with apartment buildings section, and of course the Guggenheim. We visited the Guggenheim but were depressed by many of the exhibits -- what I remember most vividly was one room filled with sunflowers dipped in lead. the Bellas Artes museum nearby is much more my style.

The mundicamino and eroski websites are great resources if you haven't seen them, and both offer schematic maps and instructions along with lots of information on accommodation and eating.
http://mundicamino.com/ http://caminodesantiago.consumer.es/los ... del-norte/

Buen camino! Laurie

 

[Deleted member 3000]

You can walk out of the airport and on city streets to Zamudio where you will intersect the Camino del Norte. You can look at the route on Google maps. It is under 6 km.

 

[viajero]

I would probably spend a day visiting bilbao and then take the metro or bus out of town to skip the industrial/ugly parts and maybe start in Pobena.

 

[viajero]

I didn't have abook that I liked. I brought the CSJ book but didn't find it very useful. I downloaded pages from the Eroski site (in Spanish) http://caminodesantiago.consumer.es/los ... del-norte/ which were fine. Sorry I don't have any book recommendations.

 

[Ria Mattheus]

Hi, Thank you for all the replies! We will defenitely look at the option to walk straight from the airport.(Thanx Falcon) We were in Bilboa the previous time so we did look at the town and the amazing Guggenheim!

 

[ria]

Hi Ria,
In 2010 I started in Lezama, not too far from Zamudio, because I arrived late at the airport. So I booked a place to stay in Lezama in advance, took a taxi from the airport & started the next morning. Not too exciting the 1st... I walked up to Portugalete, which appeared a bit too much for the 1st day.
But: later I felt really sorry that I did not walk the whole Norte, from Irun, especially because everybody told me that the first week is really nice. So every now & then I think about Irun-Bilbao, the part I still have to do
Have fun in preparing,
ria

 

[Marie McCann]

Myself and four friends are flying into Bilbao in May and intend walking to Santander by the Coastal way, can anyone recommend a hotel in Bilbao and even some along the way. :

Marie

 

[peregrina2000]

Hi, Marie,

I think the best place to start, to see what the accommodation situation is on the Norte, is mundicamino.com. It's pretty intuitive, click on Camino del Norte, then you'll have a list of stages come up, click on the stage you're interested in, and for each stage there is a list of all the hotels/pensiones (hospedajes) as well as all the albergues. Many of the places listed there include links to their websites so it's pretty easy to find out information about location, prices, etc.

I have stayed in different private places along the norte for the stretch that you describe.

In Bilbao, I stayed once stayed at the Pension Iturriena Ostatua, somewhat charming, not fancy, but very centrally located in the historic core. http://www.iturrieneaostatua.com/

On another occasion, I stayed in Portugalete -- at the Gran Hotel Puente Colgante, a decent place, nice views, comfortable. http://www.granhotelpuentecolgante.com/ -- it wasn't too pricey then maybe because it was off season.

In Castro Urdiales there are plenty of choices because it's such a tourist town, I stayed in a pretty basic but very well located pension: http://www.lamarcastro.es/

In Islares, we stayed in the Hotel Arenillas, where we had a fabulous meal in their restaurant. We spent the afternoon walking down to the water, it was very nice. Hotel is not fancy, but the restaurant is hugely popular, at least it was on the sunday we were there.

I stayed in other hotels on this stretch but I can't remember their names. The thing about the Norte is that albergues are not as plentiful, so unless you're a careful planner, you'll wind up in hotels like I did. I'm not complaining, because we stayed in some very nice coastal towns with lots to enjoy.

buen camino, Laurie