Laudio (Llodio)

The cider hits the glass in a two-foot arc, the barman's arm stretched high overhead like he's watering hanging baskets. Most of it splashes onto the sawdust floor. What's left—flat, sharp, appley—is yours for €2.20. This isn't a tourist show; it's Tuesday lunchtime at Bar Plaza, and the regulars barely glance up from their bacalao tortillas.

Laudio (they'll understand you better if you call it Llodio) sits in the Ayala valley where Biscay meets Álava, 35 minutes on the suburban train from Bilbao. The timetable says "C-3", but think of it as the commuter line that keeps this place alive. Every half hour, carriages fill with teenagers heading to the city, night-shift workers coming home, and the occasional walker who looked at a map and wondered what happens here.

What happens is work. The town of 18,000 grew around paper mills and metalworks, not around a photogenic plaza. Concrete apartment blocks from the 1970s march up the hillside alongside traditional farmhouses—caseríos—whose stone walls have turned black from decades of valley winters. It's this collision that makes Laudio interesting, if not immediately pretty.

The Valley Floor and the Hillsides

Start where everyone else does: the frontón. The Basque pelota court dominates Plaza Erkoreka like a cathedral dominates older Spanish towns. On Saturday mornings, the clack of ball against wall provides soundtrack for the weekly market—stalls selling chard thick as cricket bats, cheese wrapped in tea-towels, socks sold by the half-dozen. The market packs up by 1 pm; miss it and you'll wonder why the car park feels too big.

From here, the town unravels along three main roads. There's no medieval maze to get lost in, which disappoints some visitors. Instead, Laudio rewards those who look up. Victorian-era stone portals survive beside mobile phone shops. Iron balconies sag under geraniums. The parish church of San Pedro keeps odd hours—sometimes open for quiet contemplation, sometimes locked against the valley wind.

The real division in Laudio isn't between old and new, but between valley floor and hillside. Walk ten minutes up Calle Karmelo and apartment blocks give way to kitchen gardens. Prams replace cars. The horizon widens to reveal the valley's sandstone cliffs, carved by the Nervión river that once powered the mills. These slopes aren't wilderness—locals walk them daily, collecting leeks, walking dogs, checking on sheep kept in small paddocks behind houses.

Walking Without a Waymarked Way

There's no tourist office selling glossy trail maps. Better that way. Pick any track that heads uphill from the urban edge; within fifteen minutes, tarmac turns to gravel, then to earth. The PR-BI 132 passes through—an 18-kilometre loop that climbs to 650 metres—but you needn't commit to the full thing. Even the first ascent to Barrio Urarte rewards with views across the valley's patchwork of pasture and poplar plantation.

The walking here carries soundtrack: church bells from below, chain saws from woodlots, occasionally the whoosh of the A-68 motorway hidden in the trees. Spring brings cowslips and wild garlic; autumn turns the poplars gold overnight. Summer walks demand early starts—temperatures hit 30°C in the valley but drop sharply when clouds roll over the Cantabrian ridge. Winter brings the opposite problem: Atlantic weather gets trapped between hills, creating days when the town disappears under a lid of grey.

Proper boots matter more than walking poles. Paths can turn to clay after rain, and some tracks double as drainage ditches for surrounding fields. The reward is solitude. On a Sunday morning in October, you're more likely to meet a farmer on a quad bike than another walker with a backpack.

Lunch at Spanish Time

Food happens strictly between 1 pm and 3:30 pm. Miss this window and options shrink to crisps and coffee. The restaurants know their audience—workers with thirty-minute lunch breaks—so service is swift and portions industrial. At Asador Arriaga, the txuletón (Basque rib-eye) arrives on a platter the size of a satellite dish. Order "para uno" and you'll still get 400 grams of beef, charred outside, deep red within, served with nothing more than a green pepper and coarse salt. Price: €24, including wine that comes in an anonymous bottle and tastes better than it should.

For lighter appetites, Bar Plaza does pintxos at the counter—tortilla de bacalao still warm from the pan, slices big enough to need a fork. The cod provides gentle introduction for British palates, familiar but better: flakes of fish suspended in just-set egg, salt level carefully judged. Each piece costs €2.50; three make lunch.

Vegetarians face tougher going. The fixed-price menú del día (€12-14) usually offers one meat, one fish. Asking for "algo sin carne" might get you a larger portion of the starter—perhaps vegetable soup followed by... more vegetable soup. Best strategy: order side dishes. Most kitchens will assemble plate of pimientos de Padrón, salad, and tortilla if you ask nicely.

Getting Here, Getting Around

From the UK, it's straightforward. Fly to Bilbao (EasyJet from Gatwick, BA from Heathrow, Ryanair from Manchester). The airport bus drops you at Termibús; the C-3 train leaves every half hour. Total journey: under ninety minutes from baggage claim to Laudio platform. Buy a Barik card at the airport—€3 for the card, then top up. Each journey costs €1.76, cheaper than single tickets.

Driving gives more flexibility for exploring the valley. The A-68 from Bilbao brings you to Laudio in forty minutes. Free parking lines the riverfront Avenida de Zumalacárregui—five minutes' walk to centre, safe enough that locals leave cars overnight. Just don't expect quaint lanes once you arrive. The one-way system was designed by someone who enjoyed puzzles; sat-nav loses signal between high stone walls, and streets narrow suddenly to single-car width. Better to park and walk.

Sunday presents transport complications. Trains reduce to hourly, and the last departure back to Bilbao leaves at 10:06 pm. Miss it and you're looking at a €70 taxi ride. Restaurants compound the problem—most close at 4 pm and don't reopen. The Spanish lunch becomes not just cultural experience but practical necessity.

What Laudio Isn't

This isn't a destination for ticking off sights. There's no castle, no medieval bridge, no Instagram-famous viewpoint. The town won't charm you in the way that coastal villages might. Initial impressions can disappoint—concrete, traffic, functional architecture built for workers rather than wanderers.

But stay a few hours, walk uphill until the town noise fades, and something shifts. You start noticing details: the way stone houses angle to catch afternoon sun, how vegetable plots edge right up to apartment blocks, the pride locals take in explaining their valley. Laudio represents the Spain that tourists rarely see—industrial backbone, rural roots, daily rhythms unchanged by guidebook mentions.

Come for a day, combine market morning with hillside walking, finish with cider and steak before catching the 5:30 train back to Bilbao. Or stay overnight at Hotel Armiñe—functional rooms from €55, breakfast included, located five minutes from station—and use Laudio as base for exploring the Ayala valley. Either way, adjust expectations. This isn't a picture-postcard village; it's a working town that happens to sit in beautiful country. Accept that contradiction and Laudio delivers something rarer than charm: authenticity you can walk through, taste, and understand in an afternoon.