I mentioned that getting the bus from Bilbao airport to the city centre was more complex than I would have liked, with the tourist information office explaining to me that the information on Google was incorrect. Most bus companies might respond to this by correcting the information, but evidently some prefer a more adventurous approach to public transport. Anyway, I thought that it would be easier coming back, which was a touching little moment of optimism.
This sign made no sense to me. It appeared to be the airport bus stop, and therefore the sort of place where an airport bus might reasonably stop. But on the little plan, it seemed to suggest that the bus actually stopped on the other side of the road. I decided this must just be me failing to interpret local bus signage correctly, so as I was early (well, obviously for me, I was heading to the airport), I walked the ten minutes to the next bus stop back along the route.
At the next stop, I was pleased to see three separate passenger groups with big bags who were evidently going to the airport. I decided to ask one of them if they were going to the airport and the friendly guy said yes and I was reassured that he was Spanish and so seemed to know what he was doing.
Anyway, the bus turns up and the driver says “this isn’t the airport stop”. I did wonder why a decision had been made to put the airport bus sign up at this location given that, but I didn’t want to sound like I was querying the local transport authorities. There were some discussions in Spanish and the outcome was that the driver said that the actual stop was 100 metres down the road and on the other side of the road. We got there and there was absolutely no airport bus signage there, but there was the airport bus and so that was a result.
The driver was very friendly and I got my favoured seat at the front, so all was well. But they wonder why people miss buses, it really shouldn’t be that difficult to put bus stop signs up at the right place and have buses stop at them. If it had just been myself that was muddled up, I would have assumed I was an idiot, but it was evident that others were also confused. Anyway, that meant that I was safely back at Bilbao Airport….