What to do in Biscay

Bizkaia has world-class surf at Mundaka, a left-hand wave breaking over a sandbar formed by the Urdaibai estuary. The wave runs 400 to 700 metres on its best days and draws international competition surfers from October to April, when North Atlantic swell arrives most consistently. For beginners, the beach breaks at Laida and Bakio offer shorter, more manageable waves with surf schools operating year-round. The Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve wraps the estuary with salt marshes, pine forests and clifftops. Sea kayak lets you reach estuary zones where wading birds gather, and in spring the reserve receives thousands of bar-tailed godwits on migration. Birdwatching routes from the estuary hides record more than 200 species. The Gorbeia massif, at 1,482 metres, marks the province's south-eastern boundary and offers high-mountain hiking in the Gorbeia Natural Park, with oak and beech forest above 1,000 metres. The coastal path between Bilbao and Gernika follows the Cantabrian shoreline through the Urdaibai Reserve's clifftop terrain. The Flysch Geopark at Zumaia, though administratively in Gipuzkoa, is frequently visited from Bizkaia by sea kayak; the flysch strata are 60 million years old and read in the rock like pages of a geology textbook.