Bilbao and Rioja.

NHSontheRun has been preoccupied by work and particularly by writing about men's health recently. And I'm enjoying my new projects enormously, don't get me wrong. But NHSontheRun remains essentially my platform to record for myself the immense joys away from work, where men's health becomes my health, when work is put aside, and the simple pleasures of travel, food, new experiences, and new people are recorded.

With that in mind, Mrs NHSontheRun has crammed 23kg of new and recently Vinted items of clothing into her specially reinforced trunk. The items are so much like last years wardrobe that I would ask if I were a braver man. Her make up bag alone prompted her, I kid you not, to exclaim when she retrieved it from the case, "oh my god what did I bring all this lot for?!"

We are off on our 'olidays! Honestly we only do it for you dear reader.

Why Bilbao? Back in 1980, we or our parents (or grandparents?) only had a choice of three TV stations. We all watched with delight the same travel programs. The Thompson's package tour to the Costa Del Sol. The Campari adverts from Luton airport. And soon enough we were all booked on that flight to Palma.

There are more than three hundred TV channels to choose from now. Some main stream channels show pretty constant Chatty Travel Man, Escape to Benidorm, or Romesh does Dallas. Although this deluge provides background chatter while we prepare our lunch, it's not why we are off to Bilbao and San Sebastián.

No, some desk bound Tech Bro in Silicon Valley chooses now. They set an algorithm to slowly drip feed the idea into our heads and then onto our plates.

More salivatingly delicious social media space is dedicated to the joy of Basque culinary excellence than almost anything else, on my feed at least. Crammed between scantily clad personal trainers, I have no idea why they are on my feed, honestly, there is this Northern Spanish food porn.

San Sebastián, with its Pinxos and gildas, seems to feature most. It is how we make decisions now. No longer engaging free will to decide for ourselves that we must seek out the delights of Bilbao.

This is travel planning 2026. Possibly none of us voluntarily there, we join another plane load of Instagram lab rats heading for the old town of Bilbao.

I realise on the plane that despite the constant content, I really don't know what Pinxos and Gildas are, or whether I even like them!

It turned out, thankfully, we do. Although they couldn't be described as something I would recommend adding to your average daily health routine. Or something you could sell readily to the Brits who believe they have already mastered the sandwich.

For Pinxos read 'White bread with savoury toppings'. A wise man once told me there was no meal that was not improved by putting it between two slices of white bread. The Basques have embraced the open sandwich with spectacular success.

Gildas are 'pickled veg and tiny bits of fish skewered by a toothpick'. I doubt the plane would be so full.

Voluntary decision making aside, this AI induced experience is justification alone for allowing computers to take over the world.

I wish I could say, 'then on arrival, of course, we found a local map and chose our days agenda ourselves. Guiding ourselves effortlessly through the Bilbao tram system.' But, of course, Citymapper and ChatGPT were in fact, instrumental here too.

Our Googenheim Bilbao visit, however, did not require any AI intervention at all. We could see it from our apartment.

The experience of the Museum is largely the experience of the building which was spectacular. The massive architectural ground floor exhibits provoked such childish enjoyment that I can say we really did love it.

We ran through the exhibits touching the walls, leaning with the curves, and finding the echos within the confined spaces. I hope that is what the artist wanted. Everyone else seemed much less excited.

Some of the 'art works' were more challenging than others. But we spent several hours here and a visit to Bilbao would be diminished without it.

We then launched ourselves onto the streets of Bilbao with gusto.

We entered lanes thronged with ancient bars each packed with hundreds of us. Greedily scoffing every conceivable manner of savoury topping and washing them down with beer or Rioja. Delicious. Also, despite the elegant surroundings of these big city bars, incredibly cheap. The reality, it transpires is that the Pinxos is a relatively new invention, but more of that when we get to San Sebastián.

The old town of Bilbao was especially interesting to walk around. I predict we will return to Bilbao. Two days was not enough. Which may be a first for NHSontheRun?

From there we rented a car and set off in search of wine country.

Heading inland through the Basque countryside it's less than half an hour before the fields give way to gallons of hectares of grape. We head for Hotel Viura in Villabuena De Álava.

Viura is the name of the grape that makes white Rioja. Alava is the Basque wine county that makes up over a third of the Rioja region.

On arrival we went straight out for a walk around the village. Eventually we found an open bar.

It took the non English speaking bar lady less than two minutes to invite us to do a circular walk around the village with her to visit a pagan stone circle. Very odd. In the next breath she forcefully insisted we meet the whole village at 8pm in the square for Pinxos then return later to her bar. We found the mix of Rioja and beer, coupled with an absence of any real food a touch disorienting. Yes we said.

At 8pm as instructed we entered the Bar Plaza and discovered the whole village was already there. A couple of slices of ham on a soggy piece of tomato bread didn't adequately soak up the endless Rioja. We thought it would be a good laugh to play a card balancing game that Mrs W had in her bag. Imaginatively called Cards Against Gravity. The village it's fair to say, very much wanted to play. By 10.30 pm we had decamped back to the original bar, befriended the local Chief of police , and shaken off the bar ladies further attempts to get us to join her and her coven on the Witch walk.

Much fun was had. I was blessed with a Basque Blue lives matter wrist band by my new mate who assured me that however pissed I was when I drove locally, this band would ensure my safe release from custody. I decided not to try it out.

Our three Bodega wine tasting the following morning was substantially less enjoyable as a direct result. But we had such a fun evening. It turns out that despite multiple Spanish and Portuguese Duolingo lessons we are still unable to string three words together, but that matters so much less when fully engaged using the international language of wine.

After the painful prearranged morning of wine tasting we headed for Logrono, the 'beating heart of Rioja'.

Incidentally, before setting off we had asked Chat GPT which town to head for! This was the suggestion.

The first people we encountered as we left the carpark were drenched in red wine and swaying around wildly. As we approached the old city the drumming and wild party noises intensified. We noticed a few Adult people curled up sleeping in a children's play area. Then we started to notice the smell. Concentrated urine, like a bad day in a nursing home. As we rounded each corner we carefully avoided the young ladies crouching indelicately in groups. The party had clearly been going long enough for literally the whole town to be rip roaringly, uncontrollably pissed. The lack of festival porta-loos was noticable. Most revellers were wearing more wine than they carried, but still held pint glasses of red that slopped over as they returned towards the techno-beating Centro.

We retreated rapidly to our car and left town. None the wiser. Later we discovered that we had gate crashed the end of Grape Harvesting celebrations of Rioja. 50,000 people all pissed at the same time was a pretty intimidating and disturbing sight. We will try Logrono again some other day! Chat GPT let itself down.

Deep in Rioja we found cute hilltop towns, vibrant villages, fabulous Bodegas and friendly people everywhere we went. The white Rioja was a revelation. The different approaches to winemaking we encountered on our tour shows that Rioja is rapidly innovating and modernising to keep up with changing world of wine.

The Marquis de Riscal vineyard is notable for its spectacular building. Certainly worth a visit, although it's very busy and comparatively expensive. I'd recommend stop and see the building but do your wine tours elsewhere.

After three nights in Rioja we moved on to San Sebastián. On the way to San Sebastián we stopped at picturesque Getaria a seaside town with the most delicious open barbecue fish restaurants. We had fabulous sardines, and I tried the local drink of Sidre. Which was sharp, dry, flat and poured from a height to aerate. It was ideal with the fish.

With San Sebastián in sight, I'll finish this blog. I really don't think you need to over plan this trip. The wine and food are exceptional everywhere and very cheap. For Rioja, a car is an essential. For Bilbao an open mind is the most essential requirement, the Guggenheim demands it. And with the same open mind, for good and for bad, we must accept that AI is now very much a part of our holidays.