Today was another great but exhausting day in Guernica! We took a coach bus with our guide for the day from our hotel to San Juan de Gaztelugatxe. This is essentially a chapel on an island and the only way to get there is walk up 240 stairs to the chapel. The journey up so many stairs was much more strenuous than I thought it would be, however it was completely worth it for the view. A fun fact about this specific chapel is that an episode of Game of Thrones was shot on this exact island. While the journey up was daunting, it was arguably harder to make the trek back up, because the terrain was mostly unstable and there really were no flat parts of the trail. So while going down a hill was easy the same could not be said for going up the hill.
We then visited Bermeo, a small historic fishing village, for delicious pintxos and ice cream. Our final stop of the day was to the Painted Forest of Oma. The name bascially descirbes what this place is, a forest with painted trees that when viewed at just the right angle creates a painting with the trees.
First however, there was about a 2 mile hike to get to the entrance of the forest, which was once again steeper uphill than I thought it would be, However, once again the journey was worth it to see the intersection between nature and artwork. As soon as you get to the painted forest, the sheer number of trees that are painted is insane. The one thought circling my mind when viewing this forest is how did Agustin Ibarrola(Basque painter who made the forest) plan out the design for this forest? I think it was overall such a unique twist on modern art and thoroughly appreciated it. My favorite was the eye that aligned pretty perfectly on the upper half of the trees. After appreciating the nature on the walk back down, which was much more enjoyable than the walk up, we saw some horses and sheep!
Overall, this day was one of the more physically taxing days (according to my apple watch I did 102 flights of stairs) but it was one of the more rewarding days. Seeing the views from the San Juan de Gaztelugatxe especially were once in a lifetime, also just being able to say that I made the trek myself is its own reward. Tomorrow is basically our last day here in the Basque country and I have to say this experience has been once in a lifetime!!
