Hola! It is currently 9:20am and we are chilling in our beautiful hotel room in Bilbao. Yesterday was an eventful, but also kind of chilled day.

We started the day off in Madrid with that excellent breakfast for a second time. Easily the best continental breakfast we have had here. After this it was a 1.5 hour bus ride to our next stop Segovia.

Segovia is historic town that had lots of ruins remaining from Roman times. Most famously it has the aqueducts that span about 800 metres (used to be several kms) and are made up of large stone bricks that are not held in place by anything. It’s pretty remarkable that they were able to build something like this so long ago.

We went on a walking tour with our tour manager Zach all the way through the town who showed us all of the highlights and gave us some history behind the building. Segovia is a small and quaint town. The highlight is the Alcázar at the end of the walk. Really beautiful. Then we were given a little bit of free time to walk around.

We grabbed a little sweet that Zach said this town was famous for. It’s called Ponche Segovia. It’s like an almond pastry thing. It was pretty strange and really sweet, but yum.

We got back on the road and had a quick lunch stop at a servo/cafeteria type thing. It was average but the real star was Kinder Bueno ice cream bar. Dayummmmm. So delicious! We will be looking out for them again!

It was another few hours drive to our destination Bilbao. The coach we are on this time is better than in Italy. This one has charging outlets at every seat, is more comfortable and there are less people so we can have a double seat to ourselves – awesome!

We arrived in Bilbao, checked into our hotel which is super nice, especially compared to the hotels in Italy. We had about an hour to freshen up and then we were on our way into town. We had about 2 hours in Bilbao. Aimee and I knew that we were going to spend that time at the Guggenheim Museum.

The Guggenheim is a museum of modern art which means it’s going to be pretty weird from the get-go. There were some really weird but also some really good exhibits. Our favourite one was a giant room that you walk through and the walls are shaped as such that they distort your perception of space. Like you start walking with a lean because it feels like the wall is leaning on you. It’s hard to describe but it was really cool. Our other favourite thing was outside the museum they have a giant puppy that is made out of lots of different plants that are currently in flower. It’s pretty awesome.

This is the first time whilst in Europe that we have experienced weather that is not hot. It was overcast and quite a mild temperature. It is a welcome change from 35 degree days. It also gives our clothes more wear before a laundry visit which is absolutely vital.

We jumped back on the coach and got dropped to our included dinner. Usually dinners that are included with contiki are pretty sub-par. This one was different. A three course meal with free wine damn! The entree was a delicious mushroom risotto. I am not usually the biggest mushroom fan but damn I love mushroom risotto. Also served with a bit of bread to wipe up the juices. Delish!

Not long after that the main came out. It was a chicken breast with a pumpkin purée and scalloped potatoes. It was so enticing that I forgot to get a picture until I ate a bit of it (sorry!) it was delicious, perfectly cooked and the puree went so well on it.

Then for dessert we had a choice of Tiramisu or Yogurt with mango sauce. Having just come from Italy, the home of tiramisu I figured that this would not be as good so I opted for yogurt. It was pretty good, probably the weakest part of the meal but nice. Aimee has the tiramisu which actually looked better, but didn’t compare to Italy.

By this time I was also starting to get pretty drunk, we had drank all of our wine so we scabbed the leftover wine from the other tables. We had to leave so I sculled the rest of the wine before leaving. Bad idea, I was pretty drunk as shit all the way home. I did my classic sober up and smash water before bed though and I slept like a baby. Beautiful day!

Itemised spending:

• Ponche Segovia – €3
• Servo lunch – €30
• Guggenheim tix – €34

Total: €67

A nice cheap day which resulted in being a really excellent day!

Tomorrow we’re going to Pamplona via San Sebastián which is famous for Pintxos!

Ronnie and Aimee