Bakio (Baquio)

At 09:30 on a Tuesday in late April, the lifeguard at Playa de Bakio is still stacking red flags while a retired couple from Barakaldo walk the full 2 km sweep in matching anoraks. By 10:15 the flags are up: yellow, not red. The Atlantic has decided bathers may enter, but only up to their knees. Everyone on the promenade reads the verdict without breaking stride; this is how the day’s rhythm is set.

The Beach That Runs the Town

Bakio’s high street is the sand. The council offices, two banks and the health centre all sit one block back, but every business that matters – the surf hire cabin, the fish-auction kiosk, the bar that smells of txistorra at 08:00 – faces the water. The arc is the longest continuous beach in Biscay and, unlike the pocket coves further west, it gives beginners room to sprawl and experts space to pick a peak. When a swell arrives, boards lean against every lamppost like umbrellas in Bath on a drizzly afternoon.

Surf schools operate March–November; a two-hour group lesson costs €35 and wetsuits are included, thick enough for the Cantabrian’s idea of summer (19 °C if you’re lucky). Non-surfers can hire a fat-tyre bike for €10 a day and ride the paseo that links five neighbouring villages, though the gradient ramps up sharply east of the river mouth – expect to push, not pedal.

Cliffs, Vineyards and a Chapel That Makes You Earn the View

Behind the beach the road climbs past allotments where elderly residents tie their tomatoes to old bed frames. After 15 minutes’ calf-burn the tarmac turns to gravel and the Ermita de San Pelaio appears, a stone box balanced on the ridgeline. From the door you can see the bay’s perfect bow, the aluminium flash of Bilbao’s port on the horizon, and – on very clear days – the outline of Gaztelugatxe, the dragon-back islet that HBO turned into a fictional castle. The chapel itself is locked unless the feast day of Saint Pelagius falls on a weekend, but the bench outside is always open and the wind keeps the picnic brigade honest.

Drive five minutes inland (or walk 50 on the PR-BI 205 way-marked loop) and you’re among txakoli vines planted on impossible gradients. The grapes ripen slowly; clouds that scud in from the Atlantic act like net curtains, softening the sun. Bodega Txomin Etxaniz will pour three vintages for €6, but the village cooperative behind the football pitch charges €2 a glass and lets you keep the glass. Both versions taste of green apple and sea salt – the local answer to albariño and considerably easier on a British palate than sherry.

Coastal Paths and Carparks: the Logistics Bit

Bilbao airport to Bakio is painless: airport bus to Termibus, then Bizkaibus A3517 hourly, 45 min, €2.45. A hire car is only useful if you’re staying west of the village centre; otherwise you’ll circle the front for 40 min every Saturday. Free parking hides behind the Txakoli museum – look for the dust bowl full of white vans with boards on the roof.

The walk to Gaztelugatxe starts 3 km east at Larrabasterra roundabout. The path is way-marked, undulating and – crucially – exposed. In July you’ll share it with Game-of-Thrones pilgrims in flip-flops; come October you meet only runners and the odd goat. Allow 90 min each way and carry water because the café on the islet closes when the last shuttle bus departs. Taxi back to Bakio costs €18 if the weather turns biblical.

What to Eat When You’re Tired of Pintxos

British visitors default to San Sebastián for edible bragging rights, yet Bakio feeds you without the queue-number culture. Morning fishermen sell sea bream from plastic crates at the eastern end of the beach; take one to Asador Portuondo and they’ll grill it with nothing more than coarse salt and a squeeze of lemon. Meat orthodox should order the chuletón for two (€36) – a T-bone the size of a laptop, cooked rare, served with proper chips that arrive unbidden. Vegetarians survive on pimientos de Gernika (tiny green peppers, 80 % mild, 20 % lottery) and talo con queso, a corn flatbread that tastes like a superior quesadilla. Every bar pours txakoli from shoulder height; the theatrical fizz settles into something closer to dry English cider than cava.

Supermarkets shut at 14:00 on Saturday and stay shuttered until Monday. The 24 h DIA in Bermeo (15 min on the same bus route) becomes your emergency larder if you arrive on a Sunday with nothing but duty-free Toblerone.

Weather Reality, or Why the Bar Heaters Are On in August

Biscay treats meteorological forecasts as rough guidance. A July day can open hot and still, flip to drizzle by coffee, then reward you with a pink sunset that feels Caribbean until the wind remembers you’re at 43° north. Pack a micro-fleece even for a beach day; locals do. Winter is quieter, cheaper and surprisingly bright – the same Atlantic depressions that drown Cornwall swing north here, leaving Bakio with crisp air and 15 °C afternoons. Hotels drop to €55 mid-week; surf schools swap students for hardy retirees who greet the dawn in 4 mm neoprene.

The Upsides and the Fine Print

Bakio is not quaint. There is no medieval quarter, no artisan chocolate shop, no hotel with a rooftop infinity pool. What you get is a working village where teenagers still learn to sail in Optimists, octogenarians play mus in the cultural centre at 17:00 sharp, and the baker recognises a repeat customer by day three. English is spoken in the surf hire cabin and the souvenir-free gift shop; everywhere else you’ll manage with smiles and the Basque version of Spanish that drops half its consonants.

Come August the front-row apartments charge €180 a night and the beach fills with Bilbao families who’ve driven 35 min with cool boxes and grandmothers. May or late September give you the same light, half the people, and hotel owners who remember your name at breakfast. On the odd day when the Atlantic really loses its temper – waves slapping the promenade, foam flying across the road – the show is free and the bar heaters stay on all afternoon. Sit inside with a txakoli and watch; the village has seen worse, and tomorrow the flags will tell you whether the ocean is feeling forgiving.