Found our way to Bilbao!

 

Hola!

Up this morning with the alarm at 6 am.  I had scheduled our tickets at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbaofor noon, so we had quite a way to travel to make that time. (Although truthfully, I have no idea what would have happened if we had shown up later!  However…) 

Beautiful snowy peaks in the distance!

Lovely countryside!

Monument near our hotel

Spanish first, then Basque

Waiting for our tram

Amazing building!

Puppy!

Lots of angles and corners!

Spider sculpture outside!

Gehry actually framed the existing bridge!

Snacks for lunch!

Bilbao Cathedral

Lovely rose window

Cheers!

Garlic prawns

Eggs, mushrooms and jambon

R's entire fish!

My entrecôte and potatoes

Excellent Basque dessert!

Down to breakfast at 7, and in the car and heading east by 8 am.  As it was, it took about 3+ hours to get to Bilbao, but the traffic was seriously negligible.  It was, in fact, a stunningly beautiful day with lots of sunshine and blue sky.  In fact, even getting into downtown Bilbao and our hotel was very easy.  Arrived a bit after 11 am and dropped the luggage and the car.  Checked in at the hotel, handed them the car keys, and then out we went toward the museum. Our options were 1) take the tram two stops, or 2) walk for 15 minutes.  We were actually planning on walking, but just at that point the tram came past, and it definitely looked too good to pass up!  So, we found the tram station, and were able to buy two single tickets (1.50€each) and hopped aboard.  And then – voila! There was the Guggenheim, in all its splendor!  

Now, I am sure everyone who reads my blog knows that I am not by any means a fan of modern art. (Possibly 22 years at Art Center had something to do with it … especially as we granted BFA and MFA degrees in Fine Art…)  In fact, I’m really not much of a fan of flat artany sort, unless it’s Impressionist, which I love.  The real reason that I wanted to come to Bilbaowas to see the Guggenheim from the inside.  Some years ago, when we were in the south of France, we did a day trip to Bilbaojust to see the outside of the Guggenheim.  I thought it was great; Robert (who doesn’t like anything Gehry has designed) was appalled!  Now I wanted to see the inside!  I suppose that I knew this was a modern art museum, but goodness – the collection is very small, and there is a lot of space! Turns out there are three floors, and the third floor actually contains some of their “old masters” – they had one Monet, two Manet, three Degas and a room full of Picasso’s, most of which came from the period when he was painting objects that looked like themselves.  Then there was the contemporary collection. Well…Warhol, Rauschenberg – sigh… It didn’t take us long to cover all three floors, because honestly, there wasn’t much to see.  [Note from Robert: How can I say this without sounding like a complete Daisy?  Can anyone tell me how a 4- by 8-foot canvas painted completely black can be called art?]  But I did love the building (which was good, as it was the only thing we were allowed to photograph!)  It had lots of space and light, and Gehry did a magnificent job incorporating the existing bridge across the river into the space. Also, there was an absolutely brilliant floral sculpture called Puppy that greets people before they enter.  That was wonderful.  We also saw the Spider sculpture that protects the river-side of the building, and that was okay too.

We covered the spaces in a fairly short time, and then headed to the bar for some water and a bite to eat.  I had a very good cream of leek soup, and Robert had a large bowl of olives along with two tuna and vegetable empanadas.  We decided it was about time to head back to the hotel, which was easily reached by the tram (and this time I actually figured out how to validate our tickets, which came in handy later!)  Our room, 208, was ready and we got everything upstairs fairly quickly.  This was my point of collapse, for sure!  Very comfy bed, and I had a nice nap for an hour or so.  Up again about 4 pm and this time we decided to take the tram around to the old part of town, and see if we could find the archaeological museum.  One thing I do want to mention is that we are now in yet another bi-lingual town!  This time, everything is in Spanish and Basque – and believe me, there is no correlation between the two at all!  Basque uses lots of Z’s and X’s – I can’t even begin to imagine how to pronounce things! [Basque– also called Euskara– is not related to any other European language.  It is the only pre-Indo-European language in western Europe.]

Took the tram past the train station, then over the river and into the old part of town.  Got off and basically just decided to wander! Lots of pedestrian-only streets, and lots of people enjoying early Friday evening.  We found the beautiful Bilbao Cathedral, and took a nice audio tour of the space.  Between fires and floods, that church has been through quite a bit!  

By this time, it was heading toward 6 pm and we were definitely on the hungry side.  We tried one restaurant, but of course they were cerrado (closed) until 7 pm, but on our second try, we found an excellent restaurant that was actually willing to serve us that early!  YEAH! Took a nice table overlooking the street and got settled.

For starters, I ordered my scrambled eggs with Iberian ham and mushrooms, and Robert ordered garlic prawns.  Both were excellent.  Then, for mains, Robert ordered Turbot (which of course came whole, and he had to de-bone it himself … he is amazing!)  I once again went with the entrecote with potatoes, which was perfectly cooked. For dessert, Robert had a glass of dessert wine, and I had a traditional Basque dessert of pastry stuffed with cream and a chocolate sauce.  It was great!  We also had a wonderful bottle of Tempranillo wine, which has become Robert’s fast favorite.

By the time we were finished, it was past 7 pm and getting cooler, so we decided to head back to the hotel.  Now in for the night!  Ris sleeping away, and hopefully this blog will post quickly, as I want to catch up a bit on my sleep!  Fortunately, tomorrow we will sleep in, as we have only about an hour and half to drive to get to Burgos and the Museum of Human Evolution!  Looking forward to it very much!

More later!

m

xxx