:: To Bilbao and Back Again

The Basque name for Bilbao is Bilbo; and at times we did feel like plucky hobbits, battling seemingly insurmountable odds to reach our glittering goal: the Guggenheim.

Once upon a time (7 October, 2004, to be exact) Pinky and I decided it would be a jolly good idea to go to Bilbao by train. We had arrived in Biarritz the day before, after a long and stressful journey from Lourdes. We'd found a cheap, comfortable hotel and were put off the idea of driving in Spain by the grim warnings of our guide books. So we thought we'd go to San Sebastian by train in the morning, and to Bilbao -- and the Guggenheim -- the following day.

So we set off to the railway station, where we discovered that our dilatory ways meant we had missed the connection for San Sebastian -- there wouldn't be another train until the afternoon. We decided to go the next day, and the kind man wrote down the times for us.

I'll digress here to explain that although Biarritz and Bilbao are not a million miles apart (72 miles/116km, to be exact) and San Sebastian is even closer, they are, as the man in the Biarritz railway station emphasised, in another country. You can't just get on a train in Biarritz and go to San Sebastian. You have to get off the French train at Hendaye and get on a Spanish train. So we had quite a complicated little list of train times.

After a pleasant day spent doing laundry, e-mailing and eating (a sensational dinner in particular), we were rested and ready for Spain. We set out for the station at 9am, giving ourselves plenty of time for timetable queries: we were going to Bilbao now, skipping San Sebastian.

The ticket office was closed. The ticket office staff were on strike. Uh oh.
We asked around the many other fretting passengers and figured out which platform our hoped-for train would arrive at. And so it did, only a little late. Hurrah! We climbed aboard and got off at Hendaye.

No, no, said Jojo at the Hendaye information desk. You can't get a train to Bilbao from Hendaye. For that you need to go to Irun. We recognised the name Irun from the train we'd just left. That's where it was going after Hendaye. OK, so when is the next train to Irun? Not until the afternoon. Why aren't there trains to Bilbao? You guessed it ... "It's in another country." But the man gave us these train times - we pulled out the nice Biarritz man's list - see, you can go to San Sebastian from here ... Well yes, said Jojo, there is a little train over there ... he waved dismissively ... but it's Spanish.

We went out the door he'd indicated and sure enough, there was a little ticket window marked Tren Vasco. We inquired. Yes, there was a train going soon to San Sebastian. From there we could get a bus to Bilbao, it was quicker than the train. We bought tickets and boarded the Tren. It was a very cute little Tren. It stopped at every single station. It took a very long time to go a very short distance. But eventually we got to San Sebastian. There was a moment of confusion among the foreigners because the station was called something else (it wasn't the main station), but we all got out all right.

Now we just had to find the bus station. We asked at the information counter and were pointed down the road. It wasn't far. We spotted a bus with Bilbao on it and tried to board, but were flapped away by the driver, who directed us to the bus office, back down the road to the station. So we plodded back down, stood in a queue for a while and bought tickets. We had some time in hand, so shot off to a nearby cafe for sustenance - coffee and a bocadilla, or filled roll - for the journey.

Back at the bus station confusion reigned. There wasn't just one bus to Bilbao, there were two. Which one to get on? We handed our tickets to a driver, who checked them, tore off the stubs and waved us on board. We fell gratefully into seats near the front. But what's this? A large Spanish woman laden with bags waved her ticket at us and pointed above our heads. Oh. We were in her seat. The tickets were numbered. We hauled ourselves out and back up the bus to the right seats. Whew. No sooner were we settled than another large Spaniard was standing there, waving and pointing. Eh? We were on the wrong bus! Argh. We climbed down and got the driver to go through his stubs to retrieve ours (all in sign language), then clambered back on the right bus and finally, seconds before departure, sat down in our appointed seats.

It was quite sad to see nothing of San Sebastian but the bus station and a quick glimpse from the highway; everyone I've talked to who's been there has raved about it. Oh well. Another time.

Pinky, in the window seat, said very firmly that we'd made the right decision to go by bus - judging by the speed at which we were overtaking everything. The scenery was dramatic and strange: steep, wooded hills, rising on our left to the Pyranees, with seemingly every valley filled densely with factories and high-rise blocks of flats. Now and then we caught flashes of the sea.

After a couple of hours we arrived in Bilbao. Entering the city was quite dramatic: the motorway off-ramp curves around past tall blocks of flats, many of which had banners hanging from their balconies. Consulting our dictionaries we think it was a complaint about the noise. No wonder, with three lanes of traffic speeding past their livingrooms.

Bilbao bus station is a work in progress - bulldozers, potholes, chaos. We could see a gleaming tram stop and we'd read about the state-of-the-art system, but we hurried for the taxi rank, tired beyond belief of public transport. Take us to the Guggenheim, and step on it! It was wonderful to be whisked straight there with no hassle.

And there it was, the wonderful gallery, glistening like a spaceship that's just stopped off to refuel. And there was Jeff Koons' Puppy, huge and blooming lovely. We had a happy few hours wandering the place, marvelling at every single thing. The huge exhibition spaces, the vast canvases (Jim Rosenquist, Bill Viola - fantastic), the monumental sculptures. We had a late lunch in the gallery cafe and sat around outside for a while enjoying watching the children playing in the fountain. Then it was time to go back to Biarritz.

We took the tram back to the bus station and yes, it is state of the art, clean and quick. We had decided to be clever and get the bus all the way back to Irun. We couldn't get a bus to Hendaye, of course, because - all together now - "it's in another country". So Irun it was. Each destination had its own ticket office and its own queue. The queue for Irun was so loooooooooooong it had two ticket offices. Both with looooooooooong queues. We queued. For a very loooooong time. Finally we had tickets. Now, where was the bus? The station was boiling with people, all either queuing for tickets or outside a bus, or rushing around looking confused and panicky. We were in the latter category. Finally we found the right stand and went back to queuing. At last, at looooooong last we got on the bus and were off.

After a couple of hours, we arrived in Irun. I had been slightly fearful of finding that the Irun bus station was miles from the Irun railway station, but in fact they were right next to each other. Phew! Now all we had to do was get on a train and we'd be in Biarritz.

Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!

No, said the man in the ticket office. There's no train to Biarritz. And there's nothing to Hendaye, either. "It's another country," he explained. This is where things got a bit murky. There was a mini-bus that could take us to Hendaye, but it would cost us 100 euros, 50 euros each. If we were going somewhere in Spain, obviously it wouldn't cost as much, but to cross the border - well, it's another country. While we were arguing with him ("100 euros? are you insane?") another man was waiting who spoke both English and Spanish. "I might be able to help you, I don't know," he said. I don't know if he actually said anything harsh to Senor Ticket, but at the very least he let it be known that he was bilingual. And when we started yelling at Senor Ticket again, he'd changed his tune. There was a taxi stand, we could try getting a taxi to Hendaye. He waved us off. There was no mention of a mini-bus.

Hmmm.

So we went to the taxi stand and asked how much to go to Hendaye. "Eleven euros."

Five minutes later we were there. No border guards, no border at all, as far as we could see. "Oh, the railway station," said the taxi driver. "In that case it's only ten euros. See?" He showed us his laminated list of fares. Bargain!

We headed in to the station, finally in France, and finally on the last leg. There was a looooooong queue at the ticket office. The time showing on the departure board for the Paris train matched that of the last train from Hendaye to Biarritz, on the piece of paper given to us the day before. We had ten minutes, obviously not long enough to join that queue. We turned to the automatic ticketing machine. It wouldn't take our cards. We didn't have quite enough change. We raced around begging people to change notes. At last we had enough coins. The machine spat out tickets. We hurried along to the platform and presented the tickets to the guard. He glanced at them and said to a colleague (in French, naturellement): "This train doesn't stop at Biarritz, does it?"

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Yes, it does," said the colleague calmly, not realising how close we were to going postal on her ass.

It was a sleeper, and the seats-only carriage was right up the front of the train, a very long walk. We climbed on. We found seats. We sat down. And wouldn't you know it, here came a Spanish woman, waving her ticket and pointing. We were in their seats. Wearily, we dragged ourselves up. There was a sudden flurry, a thump, and I turned to see Pinky slumped in her seat, apparently unconscious. In front of me another woman stood frozen, a large case in her hands. She'd been putting it in the overhead rack and it had slipped and hit Pinky on the head! Everyone except the perp rushed to the pink one's aid. She came round and was thankfully unharmed. I gave the offender a very harsh look, and she said "perdon" in a grudging manner.

We shuffled down the other end of the carriage and found other seats and the rest of the trip was hassle-free. We got to Biarritz station at about 11pm and I phoned a taxi.

The driver was surly and uncommunicative, but we didn't care. He drove at about 150kph through city streets but we didn't care about that either (as Pinky said, it saved us putting seatbelts on; the g-force kept us pinned to our seats). We were back at the hotel in a flash.

The ordeal was over.