Meñaka (Meñaca)

The 08:46 flight from Gatwick touches down at Bilbao at 11:55. By 12:20 you can be collecting keys at the airport hire desk; at 12:35 the BI-631 slips you under the A-8 and into a tunnel of eucalyptus. When you emerge, the city is gone. Low ridges roll away like green surf, stone farmhouses sit broad-shouldered among their own orchards, and the SatNav lady politely announces: “En trescientos metros, llegará a su destino”. Menaka appears so soon after leaving the runway that first-timers usually drive past the turning circle, convinced the village must be farther out.

It isn’t. That is the whole trick.

A church, a bar and a bakery

San Pelayo’s single tower keeps watch over a scatter of lanes no wider than a London bus. There is no plaza mayor, no gift shop, no ticket booth. Instead you get a 16th-century portico, a stone bench worn smooth by grandfathers, and three bronze bells that clang the quarter-hours across the meadows. They start at seven, finish at ten, and keep a rhythm that makes London feel like a drum-and-bass festival. Light sleepers should pack ear-plugs; everyone else admits the bells are half the reason they slept nine hours straight.

Opposite the church, Bar Goikoa opens when the owner finishes milking. Coffee is €1.20, croissant 90 céntimos, and the Wi-Fi password is written on a scrap of cardboard taped above the coffee machine. It is the only public internet for miles, so locals treat the bar like a hybrid post office and newsroom. If you need directions, ask the man in the fluorescent tractor bib; he will draw you a map on a paper napkin that turns out to be perfectly to scale.

Walk, don’t tick

Menaka’s official population is 503, yet the hills contain at least that many caseríos again. Stone houses with red-painted balconies sit square to the slope, woodpiles stacked chest-high beneath the overhang. Some still keep pigeons in slate dovecotes; others have swapped livestock for rows of trellised vines that produce sharp, pale txakoli. The lanes linking them are farm tracks first, footpaths second, so you share the gravel with the occasional tractor and the frequent cow. Way-marking is minimal, but the rule is simple: keep going uphill until the sea appears, then turn round before the Atlantic fog swallows the view.

Distances are deceptive. A kilometre on the flat map translates into three when you factor in gradients, gates and the obligatory chat with the retired señora picking beans. Plan by time, not miles: one hour will loop you through Barrio Zabaleta and back; two lets you crest Arbalan for a glimmer of the Mundaka estuary; three earns you a picnic spot where buzzards wheel and the only sound is wind in the gorse. On clear winter days the corduroy of fields below turns emerald and charcoal; in July the same hills bleach to straw and you will be grateful for the breeze that arrives every afternoon at two.

Between coast and culture

The coast is fifteen minutes by car, yet climatically it belongs to a different country. While surfers shiver in Mundaka’s 19-degree Atlantic, Menaka sits 220 m above sea-level and keeps the evenings cool enough for a jumper even in August. That altitude is what first attracted Bilbao families looking for country boltholes: they can breakfast on warm toast in Menaka, spend the day on Laida’s sandbar, and still be back for the 21:00 church bells.

The same short hop works in reverse. Base yourself here and Bilbao’s museums are closer than most city hotels. Leave after the 09:00 bells, park under the Guggenheim by 09:40, and you will have beaten the tour coaches to the ticket desk. When you have had enough of titanium curves, the motorway spits you back into green silence before the lunch kitchen closes at three.

What you will actually eat

Forget tasting menus. Mealtimes are dictated by the farm, not the Michelin guide. The bakery (open 07:30–13:00) sells a loaf the size of a house brick and napolitanas de chocolate that flake like a 1970s school pudding. If you need protein, the neighbouring farm shifts eggs from a honesty box; put €2 in the coffee tin and help yourself. Lunch options are Bar Goikoa’s tortilla (wedged, not sliced) or a ten-minute drive to Mundaka where grilled squid arrives sizzling in its own miniature skillet. Dinner means either seafood on the Bakio seafront—garlic, parsley, no nonsense—or staying local, buying chuleton from the butcher in Mungia and firing up the cottage barbecue. Vegetarians survive on pimientos de padrón and the world’s largest tomatoes; vegans should probably self-cater.

When things go sideways

Menaka’s tranquillity comes with small print. Public transport barely exists: one bus trundles to Bilbao at 07:20, another returns at 19:10, and neither runs on Sunday. Taxis from the airport cost €30 if you forget to book, €18 if you reserve in Spanish. Roads are single-lane plus passing bays; meet a combine harvester and someone has to reverse 200 m. Mobile coverage is patchy among the folds, so download offline maps before you set out. Finally, the village has no petrol station; the nearest pump is in Mungia, 7 km away, and it closes at 21:30 sharp. Run the tank low on a Saturday night and you will be walking to mass with the devout.

Sunday rhythm, Monday silence

Weekends bring grandchildren from Bilbao, football in the pasture, and txakoli poured from height into chunky glasses. By 22:00 the square is quiet; by 23:00 the only light comes from the church clock. Monday erases almost everyone. The bar shuts early, the bakery sells out of bread by ten, and you realise Menaka is not a miniature resort—just a working parish that happens to rent out spare rooms. Stay longer than two nights and the locals stop greeting you like a tourist and start handing you sacks of runner beans they cannot finish.

That is the point to leave, or the moment you start looking at estate agents’ flyers in the window. Either way, when the bells strike six the next morning you will know exactly how far you are from the sea, from the city, and from wherever you flew in. The answer, still surprising, is: not far at all—just far enough.