Villabona

The morning shift ends at 2:00 pm in Villabona's last working paper mill, and that's when the village changes key. Workers spill out onto the N-634 in their hi-vis gear, nodding at neighbours who've just collected children from the ikastola. Within fifteen minutes, the same riverside paths that carried industrial timber now host grandmothers walking dogs and teenagers sharing headphones. This is Villabona's real speciality: a place where industrial graft and riverside living coexist without apology.

The Oria isn't scenery here—it's senior management. For five centuries the river has decided what gets built, who works where, and even how the valley smells on any given day. Paper mills, metal workshops and sawmills line the banks like workstations, their practical brickwork interrupted only by the 16th-century bridge that still carries the Bilbao-San Sebastián truck traffic. Walk the river path east for twenty minutes and you'll reach the Museo del Papel, housed in a 15th-century mill whose waterwheels once powered Spain's first national banknotes. Entry is €4 and the guided tour (weekends only, Basque and Spanish) explains why the Oria's particular mineral content produced paper strong enough for currency. Don't expect interactive screens—this is three rooms of industrial machinery and the smell of wet pulp. It closes without warning if the sole guide rings in sick.

Upstream, the parish church of San Juan Bautista squats on a river terrace like a referee between commerce and agriculture. The building itself is standard Basque Gothic enlivened by 18th-century Baroque additions, but step inside during evening mass and you'll see why locals still treat it as village HQ. The priest announces funeral times in Euskara, teenagers check football scores on phones, and someone always forgets to mute the church bells before the 9:00 pm chimes. Outside, the plaza fills with pensioners on metal benches who will tell you—without being asked—that the river flooded here in 1983, reaching the confessional box and carrying off three pews.

Getting your bearings means climbing. Villabona spreads up the valley walls in terraces originally carved for market gardens; now they're residential cul-de-sacs where each house fights for sunlight. From the church square, Calle Txurrumurru climbs 80 metres in 400 metres—think Sheffield steep with Basque humidity. The reward is a crest path that levels out across smallholdings of kale and leeks, with views back down the Oria's industrial corridor. On clear days you can clock the kilometre queue of lorries waiting to enter the polymer factory at Andoain, three kilometres south. Round trip takes ninety minutes if you resist photographing every allotment shed; less if the resident donkey decides to trot behind you.

Food follows the same unpretentious logic. There's no Michelin chase here—just two cafés, one bakery and a Friday produce market where vendors weigh peppers using 1970s scales. Bar Euskal Herria opens at 6:00 am for mill workers and serves tortilla that's 3 cm thick, served with bread baked across the river in Tolosa. The fixed-price lunch (€12, wine included) changes daily depending on what the owner's cousin brings from his farm: perhaps axoa veal stew in spring, salt-cod with pisto in summer. Vegetarians get omelette or omelette—no negotiation. If you need speciality coffee, keep driving to San Sebastián.

Cyclists use Villabona as a midway stop on the Oria Greenway, a 20-kilometre rail-trail from Tolosa to the estuary at Orio. The surface is tarmacked but narrow; share politely with parents pushing prams and teenagers on motocross bikes with silencers removed. Heading downstream delivers gentle gradients and riverside picnic tables; upstream towards Zumarraga becomes a leg-burner after Belauntza. Bike hire is theoretically available at the paper museum, but the single employee often "can't find the key"—better to rent in Tolosa before arriving.

Rain changes everything. When Atlantic storms arrive (October through April, sometimes May), the Oria turns cappuccino-brown and paths become clay skids. The village doesn't shut down—waterproofs are standard workwear—but visitors discover why locals keep Wellington boots by front doors. If you're caught in a downpour, the covered market arcade offers shelter and the bakery sells excellent coffee for €1.20, provided you can explain in Spanish or Basque that you want it "para llevar" not "para tomar aquí".

Reaching Villabona requires accepting Basque transport logic. Trains on the Bilbao-San Sebastián line stop at Andoain, two kilometres away, but only every two hours at weekends. Buses from San Sebastián's Amara bus station run hourly on weekdays, half-hourly on Saturdays, not at all on Sunday afternoons. The journey takes 35 minutes and costs €2.10—exact change only, driver doesn't speak English. By car it's 20 minutes from San Sebastián via the AP-8 (toll €3.60) or 35 minutes on the free N-1 through the industrial estates of Hernani. Parking is free but fills fast around 9:00 am when the mills change shift.

Staying overnight presents limited choice. There's one three-room guesthouse above the bakery (shared bathroom, €45 double) and a rural cottage 2 km uphill that requires a car and nerves of steel on single-track lanes. Most visitors base themselves in Tolosa (ten minutes by bus) where the NH Orly offers predictable comfort and Saturday morning truffle markets. Villabona works better as a day trip: arrive by 10:00, walk the river before lunch, climb Txurrumurru mid-afternoon, depart before the 6:00 pm freight train blocks the level crossing for twelve minutes precisely.

This isn't a village that performs for tourism. The paper museum closes at 2:00 pm because the guide needs to collect her grandchildren. The bakery sells out of custard tarts by 11:00 am regardless of queue length. Bars show Athletic Bilbao matches on ancient televisions and nobody apologises when the picture flickers. Come prepared—cash, waterproof shoes, basic Spanish—and Villabona offers an unfiltered slice of Basque working life where the river remains boss and the timetable answers to shift patterns, not tour buses. Miss the last bus and you'll wait two hours on a concrete bench, but the bakery stays open until 9:00 pm and the locals will practise their English while you check the timetable again.