The opening stages of the Camino del Norte, as the route passes through the Basque Country, are some of the most spectacular stretches of pilgrimage in Spain. It’s strenuous, for sure, but the walking is excellent, often following footpaths through coastal hills, with striking views of the Bay of Biscay and surrounding countryside, along with some picturesque Basque villages and towns (and a couple of major cities, too!).
All of that makes the final approach to Bilbao a bit more of a downer, as the official Camino from Goikolexea (a small place after Gernika) is highway-bound for nearly 10km, until passing through Zamudio. There’s plenty of car traffic in this stretch, too.
I’ve been wanting to find an alternative for years, and I finally had the chance this summer to test out a new approach. I’m excited to share it here.
The alternative begins after the town of Larrabetzu. Turn left when you see a sign for Berrezonaga. This will take you over the BI-30 expressway and then climb uphill past the Artxanda golf club. The trickiest part is finding the right dirt road to turn right onto–it’s the third option after you go through the pair of very tight curves through the golf course. If you turn onto a dirt road and it becomes a dead end, you picked the wrong one! Go back to the road and continue on to the next one! (We made this mistake…)
From there, you’ll climb a bit further to a dirt road that largely follows the ridgeline along the hills above Bilbao. Part of this overlaps with a local walking route, for which you’ll see red/blue stripes on some posts. Around 6.5km from Larrabetzu, you’ll arrive in the Elorritxueta park, which has bathrooms (open when we passed through) and a snack bar (closed). It was buzzing with local activity, including people playing racquet sports and runners. One stopped to chat with us, telling us that the area had been a critical defensive zone in the Spanish Civil War, as Basque forces tried to hold off an attack on Bilbao.
After another 2.5km along the ridgeline, the route crosses the BI-3732 and begins its descent to Monte Avril, intersecting the GR-228 (Anillo Verde) for this approach. You’ll rejoin the official approach in Monte Avril park 1.5km later, just before the main parking lot.
All told, this variant spans 10km, between the turn-off after Larrabetzu and Monte Avril. Over the same stretch, the official Camino is roughly a half-km longer. Two-thirds of the variant is off-road, while less than a fifth of the official route is, so this approach definitely succeeds in escaping pavement. That said, the variant is certainly more strenuous, with roughly 500m of elevation gain, as opposed to 320m on the official approach.
While there are no waymarks devoted to this approach–this is just me cobbling together a route, not a “official” variant–it’s pretty easy to replicate, even without gpx tracks (I’m happy to email these to anyone, though–just shoot me a note). The easiest place to mess up is picking the right place to turn right off of the road after the golf course. Once you’re there, though, you have some easy bailout options. If you go uphill, you will hit the ridgeline. If you cross the hill and descend a bit, you’ll hit the BI-3732, which runs parallel to the route into Monte Avril. So, even if you lose what I’ve suggested here, it’s pretty easy to avoid disaster!
In any case, I recommend it! I found this to be a far more enjoyable way to walk into Bilbao.
