Around Neguri - Day 41

My last hurrah in Spain (or at least I thought it would be my last hurrah in Spain...but more on that later...) was one final walk around Neguri on Saturday night (8 May) after getting back from the beach.  We didn't do anything in particular, other than getting dinner, going to an internet cafe to check on my flights, and then just kind of strolling around for a bit.

There were some giant houses by the beach...

The houses around the bay-like-thing:

Puppy!

He was just kind of chilling there while his owners were fishing...I miss Salty!

Emily and I both took a billion and five pictures...

Finally, I took these pictures for Grandpa Harry:

I don't speak Spanish, but I think I can guess what this says...

And for the last time...

After one last view of the beach, we headed back to Emily's room and spent the rest of the night packing up my stuff and watching a chick flick.  What better way to end a great day at the beach and a great weekend in Spain?

Sunshine! - Day 41

I am so close to finishing all my posts about Spain that I can almost taste it!  Not that posting about my trip to Spain isn't fun, but once I finish this trip, I can start posting about all my other trips and maybe, maybe, maybe finally get caught up with my blog.  Maybe.

So anyway...

After our lovely little hike in Plentzia, Emily and I walked around a little bit more and ambled our way back to the train station to catch the train to Neguri.  Along the way, the sun finally came out for real (it had peeked out of the clouds several times, but for the first time, it actually stayed out) and so I had some fun taking pictures in the lovely sunlight.

 There's no purpose to this picture other than to show that our shadows finally came out to play for a bit...after rain all day Friday and clouds most of Saturday, it was nice to see shadows again!

These trees were really cool...the branches of the separate trees all grew together!  I tried to get a good picture of it, but these were the best I could get... 

Notice the beautiful blue sky! 

You can't see it too well in any of these pictures, but all of the trees along the row were connected...it was really cool.

A couple more views of the town, this time with the sun shining and a bright blue sky:

That's all I have for our trip to the beach, but I still have a few more pictures from Neguri - after we got back from the beach we got dinner and walked around Neguri again.  So, still more pictures of Spain to come, but I'm getting closer...

Hiking at the beach - Day 41

After exploring the main part of the beach at Plentzia, Emily and I got lunch at a little restaurant that was pretty much right on the beach, and then Emily decided she wanted to find out what these stairs led to:

We ended up spending a couple hours hiking (for lack of a better word...it wasn't as strenuous as hiking usually implies) around this little hill/cliff thing that was along the right side of the u-shaped beach.  The pictures don't need too much narration, since they're mostly just views we got of the beach and the ocean:

Emily and me looking cute with our umbrellas:

It rained just a little bit as we got started, but then it cleared up for the rest of the time. 

Most of the path was really easy, but this part made my knees hurt...there wasn't that much room between where Emily was walking and where the cliff dropped off...

...I let her go ahead to see if the path got easier...I don't think it did, so she came back and we found another way to go up. 

 
More great views:

 

The last bit of the path up to the tippy-top:


Emily went a bit ahead of me again...we actually ended up going to the top another way because the path got too narrow again:


Views from the top (or at least as far up as we were able to go...I think it was the top):

On our way back down again:

I love how clear and blue the water looked, even from as high up as we were:

A look at the town and the beach:

Once we made it back down to the bottom, we tried to take a picture of the two of us with the hill in the background, but since I was trying to take the picture myself, they all ended up looking really goofy...so here's a picture of just the hill - imagine that Emily and I are standing in front of it...

A day at the beach! - Day 41

Now comes the best part of my trip to Spain: the beach!  On Saturday (8 May, Day 41) Emily and I went to Plentzia, which is a town on the beach about 40 minutes away by metro from Neguri (where Emily lived).  It's in the opposite direction from Bilbao, so we pretty much spent the entire day there.  There was no lounging on the beach involved since it was a little rainy and cold when we first got there, but it was still beautiful and the sun eventually made its way out from behind the clouds.

 On the way from the metro station to the beach, we crossed over this bridge:

We got some nice views of the town too:

After about a fifteen minute walk, we finally made it to the beach:

 

We followed this pathway out to a pier-like thing:

I think Emily might have gotten tired of all the pictures I was taking...


From the end of the pier, the view of the ocean was actually blocked by this other pier and a pile of slabs of rock:

The other pier was attached to a different part of the beach that we couldn't get to, so we had to go around to the other side of the beach to get a view of the ocean.

On the way back up the pier, we passed this cute little puppy playing in the sand...this was the best picture I could get of him, since he was moving so fast:


The beach was u-shaped, and the first pier we walked along was on the left side of the u.  We finally got a clear view of the open ocean once we walked around to the bottom of the u:

 I think I can almost see Lavallette...that little speck there...

Emily and me...I think this was on of the times the sun decided to shine for a few minutes:

See that little dot there in the middle of the water?

That's a guy on a surfboard.  Notice how there aren't any waves?  He was just standing on it, using a paddle to move himself along.  So maybe it wasn't exactly a surfboard, but still, I would get rather wet if I ever decided to try that...

This is a view back at the beach from once we got to the pier on the right side of the u:


A view out towards the ocean:

We then decided to go climbing on those rocks...you can see the pier we were on behind Emily:

 

A few more views across the little u-shape of the beach and towards the ocean: