Ubide (Ubidea)

The road to Ubide climbs 500 metres above the Nervión valley, then seems to forget why it bothered. Houses appear once every few hundred metres, each one anchored to its own pocket of grass as if the hills themselves had dealt out plots by chance. This is not a village that gathers round a square; it is a loose federation of farmsteads stretched across moorland that turns from emerald to dull olive the moment a cloud crosses the sun. Expect to park where the tarmac ends, pull on an extra layer, and start walking before you quite work out where the settlement begins.

A Parish, a Track, and the Space Between

The only obvious landmark is the stone church, locked more often than not, its bell tolling once at noon for the farmer who may be the only person within earshot. Stand on the tiny forecourt and the view tilts north across a patchwork of meadows that slide into beech woods. There is no café, no interpretation board, no gift shop selling local cheese. Instead, silence works like a mild sedative, broken by a chainsaw two valleys away or the clink of a cow bell moving through mist.

From the church, a web of concrete farm tracks radiates. One heads west toward the col of Barazar, gaining 150 m of height in just under a kilometre – enough to lift you into a different weather system. On a spring morning the lower fields can be bathed in sun while the ridge disappears inside a rolling cloud bank. Carry a waterproof even when Bilbao is reporting 25 °C; by the time you reach the first beech grove the temperature will have dropped closer to 14 °C and the path turns slick with last night's rain.

Walking Without a Checklist

The pleasure here is spatial rather than monumental. A typical circuit threads together three tracks and takes ninety minutes. You pass hedgerows of hawthorn and the occasional orchard where cider apples lie untouched because the owner now works in town. Gates are tied with orange bailer twine; if you meet one that is wired shut, go back the way you came – the right of way follows the hedge, not the tractor rut that looks more inviting.

Maps show footpaths, but the reality is subtler. Yellow waymarks appear, then vanish for half a mile. Mobile reception is patchy, so download the Basque Government 1:25,000 layer before leaving home. Even then, expect to navigate by sight: keep the stone hut on your left, drop to the stream, cross where the alder leans. The system works, but only if you resist the British urge to "bag" a summit. This landscape rewards patience, not peak-bagging.

Cows, Setas, and the Seasonal Calendar

April brings meadows bright with buttercups and the first swallows scissoring low over the barn roofs. Farmers turn cattle out to graze; electric fences click audibly in the still air. By mid-July the grass has bleached to pale gold and walking is best finished before eleven in the morning, when heat shimmers off the concrete lanes. Autumn is mushroom season, but the rules are strict: carry an ID guide, never fill more than a small basket, and stay clear of plantations marked "aprovechamiento privado". Locals talk of a neighbour fined €600 for picking a single ceps in the wrong patch – whether apocryphal or not, the warning sticks.

Winter changes the arithmetic. An atlantic depression can drop 30 cm of snow overnight, enough to isolate the higher farmsteads for two days. Roads are ploughed in priority order: the single track to the cheese dairy comes first, the lane to the walkers' car park last. If you fancy a frosty traverse, bring micro-crampons and do not rely on Google predicting journey times; the algorithm has never seen a Basque snowplough driver decide the route is "good enough".

What You Will Not Find – and Why That Matters

There is nowhere to buy a pint of milk, let alone a three-course lunch. The last shop closed when the proprietor retired in 2008; the nearest bar is in Zeberio, four kilometres down a road with no pavement. Plan accordingly. A rucksack containing water, fruit and a slab of tortilla from Bilbao's La Ribera market before you set off turns a short stroll into an independent expedition. If you must eat locally, the cheese farm at Urrutxua sells Idiazabal on Fridays between 17:00 and 19:00 – ring the bell, wait for the dogs to stop barking, and carry cash because the card machine is "mañana".

Accommodation is equally scarce. Three stone cottages have been converted into self-catering lets; two more offer rooms inside working farmhouses where breakfast arrives at the hour the cows are milked. Prices hover round €90 a night for two, heating inclusive. Anything closer to luxury lies back on the coast, twenty-five minutes by car in Larrabetxu or twenty in Bilbao's old town if you crave Michelin stars after a day of muddy boots.

Getting Here Without a Car – and Why You Might Anyway

Public transport reaches Ubide, but only just. Bizkaibus line A0652 leaves Bilbao at 07:35 and 15:00, stopping outside the church at 08:22 and 15:47. The return departures are 08:25 and 15:50 – miss the afternoon bus and you are walking seven kilometres to the next village with a later service. A single fare costs €2.25, exact change required. For most visitors the bus is a practical way to stitch Ubide into a linear walk: ride up, walk down the ancient drove road to Zeanuri, then catch the train back to Bilbao from there. The gradient loses 450 m in eight kilometres, easy on knees yet long enough to earn a pint of txakoli once you reach the railway platform.

Drivers should note that the final approach is single-track with passing places. Spanish etiquette applies: if the oncoming vehicle is towing a trailer of hay, you reverse. Saturday afternoons in October see a trickle of photographers hunting autumn colour; the verge near the church fills with hatchbacks parked half on the grass. Arrive before ten or after four and you will have the lane to yourself.

Leaving Without the Usual Promises

Ubide does not deliver instant spectacle. Some visitors reach the church, look round, and feel vaguely cheated. Others realise within ten minutes that the lack of spectacle is the point: a landscape that functions first as farmland, second as open space, and only incidentally as scenery. Walk quietly, shut the gate, and the reward is a kind of spacious privacy increasingly rare in southern Europe. You may leave with muddy trousers, a handful of blurry deer photographs, and the memory of wind humming through beech branches. That is, deliberately, all there is.