I enjoy travelling, which is just as well, since I had to travel from London to Leamington just to pick up a replacement sleeping bag (the one I had bought had dodgy stitching on the zip, so the shop in Leam had a replacement flown in from New Zealand for me) and then from Leamington to Guildford so I could have dinner with Chris, Kate & the girls. Conveniently, I have lent my car to a friend of Kate's for a while, so it's in no-one's way now.

It was an early start on Wednesday as I took the train to Gatwick and met with Liza at check-in. Spain here we come! The flight was uneventful (once the blood had returned to my arm), except for some lovely views... Bilbao airport is brand new. So new in fact, they clearly haven't had time to put in any signage! We found the bus to town more by luck than judgment, and there wandered through Bilbao's picturesque Old Quarter (don't ask me how to spell that in Basque) before meeting Simon and going to the Guggenheim.

How splendid is that building? There isn't an angle from which it doesn't hold the eye. I saw a total of two parallel lines anywhere on the surface of the gorgeous structure. A confection of silver, ochre and blue, it sits beside the River Nervión at the edge of Bilbao's unspectacular centre like a gleaming nugget resting on sediment in the prospector's sieve. The newness of the whole development is apparent from the just-laid track of the BilboTran tram and the uncolonised dirt at the base of the trees along the riverside promenade. If I come back to Bilbao in a few years' time, I'm sure the whole thing will have bedded down some more, but right now you feel you're admiring a work in progress. Oh, and the art on the inside is great too. I particularly liked some of the Roy Lichtenstein pieces.

The bus to Santander was a treat: only three seats across, with attentive on-board service and first-class legroom. Also, I got to go on the motorway that was only just being built when I lived here ten years ago. Hurray! The journey is now less than half the two hour slog I remember. We were met at the bus station by Ches and Nacho (who I haven't seen in a decade) who took us to bars and pointed us in the direction of yummy food. At the end of the evening, Simon & Liza went back to their hotel and Ches drove me to his parents' flat in Torrelavega, where I am staying.

I will pass quickly over the next few days, which were all similar in the sense that we drank cafés con leche, ate pinchos de tortilla, went to the beach, avoided lumps of crude oil (thank you Prestige disaster), drank cañas, and generally had a fine old time. We could arguably have done more cultural stuff in Cantabria, but hey we were having fun so why get stressed about organising trips? The weather could have been better (we only really had two days of hot sun) but it also could have been worse - at least we didn't need raincoats.

And now I'm sitting in an internet café in Torrelavega (which I spent almost an hour wandering around trying to find!), Cantabria's second city and a mere 35 minutes away from the regional capital by FEVE narrow-gauge railway. The countryside is reminiscent of Lancashire, with lush green hills and fields interspersed with human habitation and industry. In common with many Spanish cities, the buildings of Torrelavega could all do with a wash but are otherwise not ugly. I will shortly go and find myself a nice little bar or Mesón to have a caña and a pincho of something to eat.