We arrived at Bilbao at maybe 4pm, as usually everybody was sleeping in the bus, it smells the end of the trip; we’re all tired.

The last survivors: Lolo, Mino and I have followed the Urumea river to get to the center. Like in Bilbao the weather was uncertain. We spent more than one hour looking for a place to sleep in vain. It’s raining… All the team is laughing, it’s gonna be a half-assed plan. We went along the famous “Bahía de La Concha” trying to find a good spot to sleep. We finally found a shelter, to celebrate that Lolo and I decided to go swimming in the big waves of the Atlantic Ocean. It was hotter in the water than outside!

At 1am, we’ve been waked up be a policeman “You cannot sleep here guys, why don’t you go to the hotel?” I tried to explain in Spanish that every hostel was full. The policeman was really cool, he even advises us to go to another beach where we wouldn’t have any problem. Its 1:15am, 3 interRaillers are moving to another beach none sheltered…

In the morning the weather was splendid!

We visited San Seb’ and seen the departure of the rowing boat competition which is a part of a big Basque event.

We also took a good sun bath…

At 4pm we finally moved to the RENFE train station of San Sebastian, we took the train San Seb’ to Hendaye (7€).

The arrival in Hendaye was funny, we’ve back in our sweaty French culture with all his grumpy French people. Through the windows we could see a French TGV and we could heard in French “Bienvenue à Hendaye”. Here we are… We cannot use French to say stupid things anymore…

6 minutes later we took another train from Hendaye to Biarritz (6€), Biarritz was the our final stop before Paris. We got off the train at 6 and we walked in the direction of the beach and… we discovered a small piece of paradise.

The sunset was awesome, besides we had 2 liters of sangria !

This last moments in Biarritz was the “icing on the cake”, one of my best souvenirs of this interRail trip.

After a 5 hours journey from Madrid to Bilbao by bus, we arrived at 2 a.m without any place to end up our night. Determined to find a cosy place in a park as usual, our enthusiasm has been quickly slowed down by the darkness and the rainy weather…

So, we’ve slept as hardcore backpackers on benches under the roof of the bus station.

In the morning, Lolo had big difficulties to wake up….

Yes Amine, fountains at dawn are breathtaking…

Then, we’ve decided to wander around town. Our first objective? See by our own eyes the well-known modern architecture of Guggenheim Museum… And for real it is astonishing…

Below, a stolen picture from the inside of the museum. Indeed, owing to a stupid rule, you can not take any pictures in the museum. Shame, cause it’s beautiful

Visits are quite expensive (6€ for youth) and with little of time left, we’ve decided to discover the city of Bilbao.
I don’t know my mates’ impressions but I was pretty surprised by this city. I had always heard Bilbao as an industrial city that doesn’t worth to stop by. It’s absolutely FALSE! The entire city seems to be an experiment of new architecture. I loved the mix between basque traditional buildings and mordern structures with a crazy design. For instance, entry of subway vs Teatro Arriaga…

Finally, I left my friends at lunch in order to catch the plane which would have brought me back to France.

Here is my final video of my Interrail trip in Spain on Plaza Nueva (tears…)

Toledo is a very cute city enclosed by old rampart.

Unfortunately, we do not have the opportunity to visit inside the Alcazar since it was under renovating.

The city sits atop a small mountain, thus we can appreciate some awesome landscape completely dried by the sun.

We tramp in the Jewish district, we’ve visited the synagogue, inside Tonio’s got a fucking bloody nose, he covered everything by blood. But thanks to the hospitality of spanish people (at least 5 persons) everything was fixed up in 10 minutes.

At the end of the day it was the big rush since we had to get back to Madrid, then retrieve our backpacks at the hostel and buy some food, to finally take the metro to the bus station in order to catch the bus Madrid > Bilbao… We scheduled everything to the minute and split the tasks to do !

After taking the wrong way in the subway (thanks Mino! He alerts everybody, you were useful this time lol). We finally arrived to the bus station. We made it ! Yahoooo !

It’s almost the end for Tonio, he couldn’t miss this bus. Tomorrow he will take his return flight to Paris (from Bilbao).

Madrid was pretty nice! We’ve visited lot of sights in one day as you could see on the pictures bellow.

La Plaza Mayor

Palacio Real with extraordinary room (3.5€ for students).

Templo de Debod, an Egyptian temple in the middle of Madrid

Gran Via

Museum el Prado (free acces for Student), very big museum Tonio try to do all the exhibition room but in no more than 3 hours it’s impossible. Not to far from the museum, we have a pleasant time in the Retiro Park.

on the evening, we meet Colin a French guy that was starting an Eramus years here in Madrid, we’ve spent a good time with him on the Plaza Mayor drinking beer.

Tomorrow, we’ve decide to skip Madrid in order to visit Toledo, it’s only one hour by bus from Madrid and it cost 8€ (round-trip).

It’s raining, welcome to Galicia! Everybody has setting up his poncho and all other waterproof stuff to protect our backpack. It’s the first time we’ve seen rain in Spain.

We were surprised by the modernity of this medieval city when we walked from the train station (in the new town) to the old town. Obviously we spent a lot of time in the cathedral which is the final destination of “the way of St James”, the famous pilgrimage route.

Vincent was fascinated by the Botafumeiro one of the biggest incensory in the world that can reach a speed of 68 km/h! While Mino is having a milk coffee to warm himself, we go all around the cathedral.

Tonio looks like a pilgrim!

At the end of the day, we were soaked, the long waiting in the train station was cold and boring… We’ve finally caught the night train at 10pm to Madrid (This one has been booked in …). We were happy to leave to get to Madr
id where the sun should come back.

10pm we arrived in Porto, we didn’t know where to sleep…  Wild camping? Camping? Youth Hostel? It was difficult to agree. We finally found a cheap hostel (10€ per night per person) named “Pension Franca” the guy speak a bit French.
The day after we started the visit of the center with the Mercado does Bolhão (Central Market of the city), the main street and the Iglesia de Sao Francisco (pretty nice woodwork inside)
Then we follow the bank of the Douro River (Ribeira) until the Ponte D. Maria engineering and designed by the Mister Eiffel.

For the occasion, we decide to take a real lunch with sardine! Enjoy!

Then we climb the Torre dos Clérigos and we cross by boat the Douro to Sao Pedro da Afurada (West of Porto) with a nice sunset.

At the end of the day, it was funny because we all bough a bottle of Port wine! We couldn’t resist!

After lot of adventure we finally settled in the Parc Eduardo VII to sleep, honestly it was a really calm place to sleep.

To start this new InterRail day in the capital of Portugal, we’ve been to Belem District with the famous “Torre de Belem” and the “padrao dos descobrimentos” (monument to the discoveries) in background of the picture below.

Then we’ve passed through the Barri Alto, walking in the city know for his 7 moutain…

We take the famous cable car number 21 that bring you near the Castle of St George where you have a fantastic view on the city. The weather was really sunny, the city looks like other mediteranean city like Nice. It’s High colored !

It’s 6pm and it’s time to leave…  We took the train Express to reach Porto the second city of Portugal.

To reach Lisbon by train we had to take the bus to Faro. It’s a famous city at the border line.

From Faro to Lisbon, it took a pretty long time by train : about 5 hours. While Lolo tried miserably to sleep, the others choose to work on the Tour guide : The Lonely Planet !! (our baby during the Interrail Trip please!)

Actually, they were tired …

Anyway, the landscape during the rail trip was wonderful and lovely ! I mean, that’s why we choose to do the trip by train. This is for you :

Arriving to Lisbon, the “Oriente” train station design was amazing. Not to mention Palms all around the place.

Wearing Backpacks with nothing to eat, we went through downtown for visiting Lisboa by night : Amazing !

In the morning, we started to visit the biggest Gothic cathedral in the world.  Well, very impressed by the size and the view ! And the top of the Giralda Tour was beautiful.

By the way, we are European Students’ Union, so the cathedral entrance was free for us. Good Tips !

It’s lunch time, we went through the Barqueta bridge where we saw the Alamillo bridge. Such a weird thing !

Next, we walked along the Guadalquivir ( from Oued el-Kebir in arabic means The big River ) to join the “Plaza de toros” and the “Torre del Oro“.

But the best is comming with the visit of the beautiful Alcazar garden and the “Plaza Espana“

And for this last night in the capital of Andalusia, what’s better than beer, pasta with bolognese sauce and cheese for diner! Good for your diet Mino

In Sevilla, thanks to the information point we found a great youth Hostel

Good tips !

Sevilla Inn Backpackers is very good located and it was a nice place to met people. The roof is awesome for dinner with a view on the cathedral.

After a good time having shower Lolo and Castel went out to admire night life in Sevilla. While Tonio and Mino where enjoying this restful place

The end of the night was just about drinking beer with others foreign students and the view of the Giralda in the hostel terrace was definitly Magic !