Plentzia (Plencia)

The 40-minute metro ride from Bilbao ends beside a duck-green estuary so narrow you could hit a tennis ball across it. Step off the train, walk two minutes past the station café, and the beach appears—curved, calm, and suddenly twice the size it was at breakfast. This is Plentzia’s party trick: the Cantabrian tide redraws the sand every six hours, and the whole town resets its rhythm to match.

Estuary Living

Plentzia was built where the Butrón river gives up and dissolves into the bay. That geography matters. At high water, fishing skiffs nudge the stone quays and the smell of diesel mixes with seaweed; at low water, the river almost disappears, leaving a shiny mudflat that gulls patrol like bouncers. The change is so dramatic that locals plan their day around the tabla de mareas printed in the local paper—surf when the push starts, walk the dog when it drops, meet for vermouth when the water returns.

The old centre, a five-minute shuffle uphill, is small enough to circle in the time it takes to drink a cortado. Houses are tall and narrow, built by 19th-century shipwrights who had little land and plenty of timber. Look up: balconies are painted ox-blood red, green shutters fade to sage, and every so often a stone coat of arms boasts a whale or an anchor—reminders that this was once a launch point for Basque whalers heading to Newfoundland. Today the only boats crossing the Atlantic are the container ships on the distant horizon, but the maritime shorthand lingers in street names: Calle San Juan, patron saint of fishermen; Calle Arkotz, “little arch” where nets were hung to dry.

Between Two Beaches

The town beach, Playa de Plentzia, faces south-east, shielded from the full Atlantic slap by a headland. That makes it safe for children when nearby Sopelana is a washing machine, but it also means the surf is modest. Body-boarders still float hopefully on mid-tide, yet the real action is a ten-minute walk east along the cliff path to Gorliz, where the estuary mouth funnels swell and beginners can rent a 7 ft foamie for €15 an hour. If you prefer to stay put, bring a bucket and turn over rocks at low tide—tiny crabs scatter like dropped marbles.

Sand quality shifts with the moon. Spring tides expose a broad, hard plateau perfect for paddleball; neap tides leave a skinny strip so tight that towels overlap. The council rakes daily in summer, but seaweed drifts in by late afternoon, smelling faintly of miso. Blue-flag showers shut at seven sharp; after that you’ll need a bar stool and a friendly camara if you want to rinse the salt off your ankles.

Lunch Before the Queue Hits

Spanish school holidays turn Plentzia into Bilbao’s outdoor canteen. By 13:30 every terrace along Kalea Nagusia is gridlocked, prams wedged between tables, grandparents guarding handbags. The trick is to commit early: bag your table at 12:45, order txakoli while you still have elbow room, and accept that the gildas—anchovy-olive-chilli skewers—arrive three at a time because the kitchen cannot plate fast enough.

For the cautious palate, start with txangurro, spider-crab gratin that tastes like a superior tuna melt, or the croquetas de chorizo that any British child would recognise as “fancy fish-fingers without the fish”. Restaurant & Terrace Uribe, on the corner of the main square, does a tempura squid lollipop that looks like it belongs at a children’s party; dunk it in alioli and pretend it’s scampi. Vegetarians are stuck with tortilla or the ubiquitous tomato-rubbed toast called pantumaca—order the version topped with local Idiazabal sheep’s cheese and you won’t mind the limited choice. Pudding is a chocolate “mushroom” (no fungi involved, just dark mousse and biscuit stem) strong enough to make a nine-year-old blink.

Walking It Off

The riverfront promenade is flat, push-chair friendly and ends abruptly at a slipway where fishermen still mend nets. Follow it west for 25 minutes and you reach Barrika’s first cliff; look down and you’ll see surfers popping up like meerkats on a reef nicknamed El Peñón. The path then climbs to a windy plateau where gorse smells of coconut sunscreen in June. Turn back when the trail turns muddy—after heavy rain the clay grips like axle grease and you’ll skid even in proper boots.

If you prefer numbers, the signed Greenway to Gorliz is 3.8 km each way, elevation gain 45 m, average time 45 minutes. Joggers use it, but the surface is fine for hybrid bikes rented from the shop opposite the metro—€12 half-day, helmet thrown in. Cycle both ways before 11:00 and you’ll have the track to yourself; wait until after lunch and it’s a dog-walking motorway.

Getting There and Getting Stuck

The Bilbao metro is clean, cheap and terminates here. Buy a Barik card at the airport station and the fare drops to €1.90; cash payers fork out €2.40. Trains run every fifteen minutes off-peak, but the last service back to town is 22:50 on weekdays, 23:05 at weekends—miss it and a taxi clocks €40 before you reach the motorway. Drivers should ignore the tempting seafront slots and head straight for the free Aparcamiento behind the river; it fills by 11:00 on summer Saturdays, after which you circle like a bored gull.

Out of season the place exhales. Half the pintxo bars close on Tuesdays, hotel reception opens only four hours, and the beach bar strips its timbers for winter storage. October sunshine can hit 24 °C, but bring a jumper once the sun drops behind the ridge; the estuary traps cold air and evenings taste of metal. In January a north-east gale whips sand against shuttered villas—atmospheric, but not the moment to discover most cafés lack indoor seating.

Worth Knowing, Worth Forgetting

Plentzia is not postcard-perfect. Beyond the old core, 1970s apartment blocks rise in sugary pastels, and second-home terraces stand empty until July. The supermarket shuts for siesta, English is patchy, and if you forget cash you’ll be washing dishes after the third round. Yet that slight roughness keeps the tour buses away and leaves room for improvisation: a spontaneous kayak hire when the rental boy decides to open, an extra pour of txakoli because the bottle is almost finished, a conversation with a retired fisherman who explains why the sand is darker here (magnetite from the river, stuck to your towel like glitter).

Come for a tide, stay for a meal, leave before the last train. You won’t collect bucket-list sights, but you will remember how quickly a place can shrink the city behind you—and how loudly a child laughs when the sea suddenly reclaims the castle she spent the afternoon building.