DAY TRIP FROM BILBAO, SPAIN: Climbing the Dragonstone Stairs and More, Guest Post by Jennifer Arnold

Gaztelugatxe Island, Spain. Hermitage, including the stairs.

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In June, my daughter Jennifer and a friend took a trip to northern Spain, visiting Bilbao and the surrounding area before going to conference in San Sebastian. While staying in Bilbao they did a day trip to the island of Gaztelugatxe, and to the towns of Mundaka and Gernika. I thank her for sharing her excellent photos and impressions of the trip with The Intrepid Tourist. (This is Part 2 of her report.)

A cross outside the Gaztelugatxe  hermitage with a sign saying “cross year 1891”.

While visiting Bilbao, my friend and I took a guided tour to visit nearby sites on the coast to the north. Our bilingual (Spanish/English) tour guide picked us up at the Guggenheim Museum (which was walking distance from our hotel) and took us by bus.

The first stop was San Juan de Gaztelugatxe Bermeo, a hermitage dedicated to Saint John the Baptist on the tiny island of Gaztelugatxe in the Bay of Biscay. The church is believed to have been first built in the 9^th century, but it has burned down and been re-built several times, most recently in 1886. It sits on an island with an impressive steep stone stairway with 241 steps.

San Juan de Gaztelugatxe sign outside the hermitage.

Dragonstone path.

While the hermitage has its own historical and religious significance, it has recently become a popular tourist destination because it was used as the filming site for Dragonstone, a fictional island in the Game of Thrones series. The images in the series are digitally created but the stairs and island are real.

San Juan de Gaztelugatxe church.

Our next stop was Mundaca, which is a local fishing village that is well known for surfing. We then went to Gernika, a Basque town (spelled Guernica in Spanish) nearby. Gernika is famous for the terror inflicted by Franco when he sent planes to destroy the town with bombs on April 26, 1937.

The attack is commemorated by Pablo Picasso’s painting “Guernica”, which is currently on view at the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid. The Basque government has made a request to bring the painting to the town of Gernika, but the request was denied   At this time you can only see a tile replica of the painting in the town of Gernika.

Tile replica of Picasso’s painting “Guernica”.

Gernika is an important locale for the Basque identity, and has been re-built into a beautiful town. The Basque people live in northeastern Spain and southeastern France, and have their own Basque language (Euskara) that is unrelated to other modern languages. Today the Basque region is identified as an “autonomous community” within Spain.

The town of Gernika, Spain.

The Tree of Gernika, an oak tree that symbolizes the freedom of the Basque people.