Bilbao-Portugalete

We left one of our rucksacks in the hotel and then set off following the Camino up the hill out of Bilbao, initially following the motorway. At the top of the hill we met a group of Americans resting after having taken the steps up from the bottom of the hill which was much steeper than the way that we came up, although we may not have come the official way! It emerged that they were from North Carolina (Durham and New Bern!), and we kept meeting up during the day. We went up through some old villages and then through a forest and an old road down to Devil's Bridge. From there uphill again, partly on a medieval road to a (closed) hermitage. From there it was gradually downhill on road until we got into an area where new apartment blocks were still being built, and in the middle of this housing area, we found a small cafe where we had a morning tortilla and coffee. We wandered our way through new areas and up to an old church seeming lost in the middle of the new developments, but ideal shelter for us to have a snack. From there, we wound down through abandoned industrial areas and then up the hill towards the old town of Portugalete, once steeply sloping vineyards. An unusual feature was the cable car that ferried passengers across the estuary. The weather had settled into torrential rain, so after a look at the church we down to the tourist office, which was shut and so we waited in a cafe over steaming mugs of hot cocoa until it opened and we could have a a stamp and some local information. The train station was nearby, so we got the train back to Bilbao, collected our rucksacks from the hotel, and set out to find the AirBnB we had booked to extend our stay due to the weather and our relatively slow progress around Bilbao.