How to choose a city. Part two!

Bilbao was ‘it’ for the longest time. It checked the box of climate being the opposite of Texas, the geography box by being close to the coast and in the mountains at the same time. At about 320K of population it was the perfect size. The language requirement… Eh… it’s fine. Because just look at this city! So what, kids will get to learn some Basque.

Consideration #5: Schools

Many expats in Spain send their kids to private/international schools. They have a variety of reasons for that, one of them being that kids don’t speak Spanish and they want to take it slow as opposed to going to a public school right away. Since we want to move long term (if everything goes well), integrating into the society is a must and public schools are likely the way. Not only is it full language immersion right away, going to a public school means that your school friends live near you and it’s easier to make and maintain those connections.

I have seen a common sentiment from expat parents regretting going with a private school, because the kids didn’t learn much Spanish and their friends lived too far away. Quality of public schools is a common concern for American parents because in the US it varies a lot and really depends on the area, so you have to carefully pick where you live and pay top dollar to rent or buy in a good school district. In Spain it’s different. Public schools overall are very comparable so it’s not a #1 item on the list when you choose the area to live in.

Bilbao is the largest city in the Spanish Basque Country and, as we came to learn, public schools here mostly teach IN Basque. Technically, there are several language models in public schools.

Modelo A is taught in Spanish, with Basque and English taught as language classes.
Modelo B is 50/50 Spanish/Basque plus English as a language class.
Modelo D is taught in Basque with Spanish and English as language classes.

If we were to settle in this area, I would like my kids to learn the local language. I would prefer to start off with Model A or B to start to minimize the stress from the transition. Well, it turns out there’s maybe one or two schools in the Bilbao area which offer Model A, one in the center and one in a different area. Model B appears to be more dead than alive. There are a couple places that offer it, but according to some parents the 50/50 is actually more like 80/20 in favor of Basque. The rest of the schools only have the 100% Basque option.

This whole thing would have been easier if it was easy to get into the school of your choice. Since we’d be moving in summer, the schools are already all set for the school year – school applications are normally done in February-March – and so in August you get whatever school has spots available. Which means it’s very likely going to be Modelo D.

I’m not excited about private or international schools, and there is one more option to consider – a concertado, but the above admission schedule applies, so again, no guarantee we’d get in.

There is a silver lining, generally it seems Euskera (Basque language) is taught a lot to younger kids (pre-school is all Modelo D), and then slowly more Spanish gets added. By high school it is mostly Spanish (this is all second hand information, don’t quote me) in preparation for college I suppose.

Yet if we were to stay in Euskadi long-term it would be beneficial for the kids to be fluent in Basque which is a pretty difficult language to learn. So you’d probably want to learn it sooner than later. Decisions, decisions!

Anyway, Bilbao got a little bit more difficult to justify and we turned our sights west.

Consideration #6 The vibe

At this point our trip and kids’ first visit to Spain was coming up and we decided to scrap the original plan of let’s-actually-chill-and-take-it-easy-for-once and replace it with our classic run-all-over-the-place-gotta-see-everything option.

We agreed to spend the first week in Madrid and Barcelona with extended family, then head north to check out the cities on our list.

The list:

Bilbao – at this point Bilbao is a no, but we still want to see it as tourists
~~San Sebastian~~ didn’t make the final list, not enough time
Santander
Gijon
Oviedo crawled onto the list in the last couple weeks
~~Vigo~~ has come up a couple times before but was deemed to be “too far from everything”

I may write a more detailed city report, but this post has got to end somewhere, right? Spoiler alert:

We loved Bilbao so much it somehow ended up right back on our move-to list and at the top of it. The scenery is beautiful in any direction you look. Historic buildings combined with modern design remind me of Scandinavia. Nervion river adds a nice touch with a promenade and tall trees. Modern transportation including subway, tram, cable car, etc. A fruteria at every corner. A nice playground at every other corner. We were all pleasantly surprised. Husband was so impressed he did not think another city could top it.

Santander got unlucky with very sunny weather, cruise ships and their passengers, siesta at the most inconvenient (Ha!) time. The coastal views were stunning, don’t get me wrong. The streets felt sleepy as soon as you left the promenade and turned inland. I still feel like we weren’t fair to it, but it came off the list that same day. Next morning we attempted getting to the beach for a breakfast picnic, but made the mistake of driving off from the hotel to do that. We failed miserably at parking anywhere near the beach and ended up leaving.

Gijon was rainy and murky in the morning, perfect for churros for breakfast. It cleared up to bright full sun. I actually got sunburnt! The coast was beautiful, the beach peaceful. Calle Begonia, of course, bustling. It felt a little too touristy, not terribly clean and some areas looked a bit run down. Husband’s main complaint was cars. Too many streets not restricting traffic. We weren’t actually able to get a hotel in Gijon as everything was booked. (Which was probably also a preview of what trying to find a long term rental looks like.) So this was a day trip from Oviedo.

Oviedo was hot on the first day, but charming with its completely walkable area and small town feel. We had some cider and snacks at an outdoor café, walked around the historic town, and maybe we found Campo San Francisco (a park right in the middle of the city) the same day? I don’t remember. We then found ourselves at that park every day, and kids started making friends at the playground. Oviedo was very clean, pretty chill, and felt very historic “Spanish”. It climbed to the top of our list and squeezed itself in at #1 right next to Bilbao.

Do we have a winner?