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Published: July 24th 2022
Today we’ve hired a car and plan to drive to Bilbao to see the Guggenheim Museum, and then onto the apparently iconic clifftop chapel at Gaztelugatxe on the coast north of Bilbao. The motorway is excellent and runs through spectacular terrain of steep lush green hills dotted with cute small farmhouses. The speed limit‘s 120 km/h most of the way, and there’s no shortage of fiends keen to test it and then some. We feel like we’re at some sort of major European crossroad with signs to France and Portugal. …. and I know it’s important to give drivers plenty of warning so they don’t miss their turnoff, but I would have thought the signs in Arabic directing motorists to Morocco might have been taking things just slightly to extremes.
Bilbao’s version of the Guggenheim Museum was opened in 1997, and it seems that it’s mostly notable for its architecture. It sits on the bank of the Nervion River, and the stunning structure’s a bit hard to miss when it first comes into view as we cross the bridge next to it. It’s clad almost entirely in scale-like titanium plates on a structure of galvanised steel. Also a bit hard
to miss is a ten metre or so high multi-coloured vertical garden in the shape of a dog near its entrance.
The Museum houses both temporary and permanent exhibitions. First cab off the rank is a series of massively long curved copper plates, each about thirty millimetres thick and five or so metres high, displayed in a huge gallery on the ground floor. Signs warn visitors that the whole area’s under constant video surveillance, so don’t even think about trying to steal one. Huh? They must each weigh several tonnes, so I would have thought you’d need an entire fleet of cranes to shift even one of them. Still, can’t be too careful I guess. Another large section is currently devoted to everything cars - vintage, racing, space age, model, you name it, including a corridor where you get to listen to the noises made by a range of them dating back to the late nineteenth century.
Another display is multiple strips of flashing neon lit letters. These spell out phrases, and they move from floor to ceiling really quickly as you stand in front of them. I’m not sure about anyone else, but I certainly need to
hang onto something if I’m not going to end up in a heap on the floor as I try to read them. I get a similar effect from a painting in another section. It’s got curved lines on it which give the illusion of moving waves as you walk across in front of it. I’m sure the Museum’s not deliberately trying to mess with my senses but it seems to be doing a good job nonetheless.
We notice quite a few people here dressed in the Pamplona Running of the Bulls outfits that we’ve seen all around San Sebastián, so Issy Googles the latest news. The organisers are apparently really pleased. Only three people have been gored so far this year (one of them an Aussie) and they haven’t had a single death, well not a human one anyway. The bulls, well it seems they haven’t been quite so lucky. We hadn’t realised this previously but after exhausting themselves with all that running these poor creatures then have to front up again every night to fight. And how do these fights almost always end, well with the bulls being stabbed to death of course. And how do the organisers
feel about that. Well they don’t care. A lot of Spaniards are however, it seems, waking up to the cruelty and barbarity of this whole ugly spectacle, and local opposition to bull fighting is apparently growing strongly by the year.
We head off on the steep and very windy road to Gaztelugatxe. I’d never heard of this place until I saw pictures of it on an advertisement for tours to take from San Sebastián. I read that there were strict limits on the numbers of people they’d let into the site every day, so if we wanted to go I’d need to book on-line months in advance. The site is a small chapel on top of a steep hill. We read that there’s been a chapel of some sort there since the tenth century, although a recent iteration was burnt down in 1978 and the current version was only inaugurated in 1980. It’s connected to the mainland by a causeway with a narrow path on top of it with stone walls on either side. To even get to the causeway it seems you first need to make your way 800 metres along a cobbled path down a sheer cliff,
and if you manage to survive that, well it’s another five hundred or so metres of steep narrow cobbled path up to the chapel on the other side. It seems that the reason for limiting the numbers is that the path has a tendency to fall off the side of the cliff into the sea, and the more people that walk on it, the more frequently this is likely to happen. The website warned that just because we’d booked a spot didn’t guarantee that the path would be here when we arrived. We set off. First stop is a view of the clifftop chapel and along the coast to the west. This is absolutely stunning, and has got to be right up there with any views we’ve seen anywhere in the world.
Issy has a look at the path down the rest of the cliff and up the other side and decides that that’s it for her for today, so off I trudge alone. They certainly do seem to be having their share of problems with the path. Halfway up the cliff on the other side the stone path suddenly turns into steel steps supported by scaffolding. The pounding
of the waves is replaced by the dulcet tones of jackhammers trying to find some solid ground on which to reconstruct the latest bit of path that’s given up the ghost; its remnants are lying hundreds of metres below us on the shore being pounded by the waves. If that wasn’t enough to worry about, I’m now also starting to feel more than a tad concerned for the welfare of some of my fellow trekkers. Did some of these overweight seventy and eighty year olds not see the task that was in front of them before they set off. A lot of them look exhausted already, and they haven’t done any of the uphill bits yet. I begin to wonder if this mightn’t perhaps be some sort of pilgrimage site. Whilst I certainly commend them for their efforts, if some of these people were hoping to get closer to God at the chapel, if what I’ve seen so far is anything to go by I fear quite a few of them might actually get to meet him well before they get anywhere near that far. The views from the top are as stunning as ever. …and I’ve now got more
concerns than ever for our would-be pilgrims. If they were hoping to stagger into the chapel and prostrate themselves before the altar as penance they’re going to be mighty disappointed; it’s locked.
Back in San Sebastián we decide to up the ante and dine in the magestic Constitution Plaza. It’s surrounded by restaurants hosting hundreds of outdoor diners. The food, drink and atmosphere are all superb. It’s a bit hard however not to notice a dozen or so kids, most of whom couldn’t be more than about ten, plying their soccer skills mid-square with diners all around them. No wonder Spain’s had so much success on the world stage recently; the skills on display are exquisite. Now if this was Melbourne and there was a mob of kids playing kick to kick with an Aussie Rules football with diners all around them, there’d be carnage - broken glass, food and beer flying in all directions. But is this happening here; absolutely not. The skills are so good that the ball never gets within a bull’s roar (that’s a live bull) of anyone other than the kids themselves.
Issy says that San Sebastián is her new favourite Spanish city.
That’s quite a compliment given that at last count this is the thirteenth place we’ve stayed at in this country since 2016. It’s hard to argue. What’s not to like - fantastic beaches, great food and drink, impossibly cute old town architecture, great weather (probably a bit of luck in that one), and a very very relaxed vibe.
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RENanDREW
Ren & Andrew
Beautiful!
In my book, nothing beats relaxed holiday happiness :)