Bilbao

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Bilbao is on the Northern coast of Spain on the Bay of Biscayne, the same bay the much of western France is on. It is the largest city in the Basque Country with over 1 million residents. In the 19^th century it was the industrial center of the Basque Region, then came Guggenheim. The museum was designed by Frank Gehry and puts the New York Guggenheim to shame. The architecture of the building itself is worth seeing. The museum opened in 1997 and now I don’t think of Bilbao without thinking Guggenheim. More on the museum later.

Unfortunately for us, Sunday in Bilbao is not the day to visit. Most everything is closed, except the Guggenheim. It is a very sleepy city on Sunday. We did not make it to the old section Casco Viejo or up the hill on the Funicular de Artxanda, all we managed was the Guggenheim, but that was probably enough for one day.

The day started as always with breakfast in the hotel. I do need to note, for a 4-star hotel, accommodations are pretty lacking. The room is sizable, but there is zero climate control. It was very stuffy and made sleeping a bit uncomfortable, it does help when you finally figure out how to open the window all the way. Jerry says that bathroom was built for Munchkins, the sink is slow low you basically have to get on your knees to use it. The staff (housekeeping the exception) is pretty unfriendly and unhelpful and the breakfast, the worst of the trip, food cold and bread stale.

After breakfast, we were off to the Guggenheim. We took the streetcar to save some walking and my back. The streetcar is very modern and the stop two blocks from our hotel along the river. It drops you about 100 feet from the Guggenheim. As you approach the museum, it is not hard to come to a complete stop to admire the structure of the building. Evidently Frank Gehry designed concepts come from scrunched up sheets of paper, this information comes from Jerry, I would have no clue about any of it. The building is massive and surrounded by sculptures and water features. When you get in the building, it is the definition of minimalism. The art is clearly the focal point, each room only has a few pieces. Other museum’s such as the Prado in Madrid or the Louvre in Paris, the walls are loaded with masterpiece after masterpiece, thus causing art fatigue in someone and for me, leads to Museum brain within about 90 minutes. The design and layout of the Guggenheim makes viewing the art somewhat easier, especially since it is all Modern (abstract, post-modern and beyond). This of course is not my favorite type of art, but it was easier to take in given the presentation in each room.

There were only a handful of artists I was even familiar with; Jerry knew them all. If you’re looking for Rembrandt, Rodin, Van Gough, Monet and the like, you will not find them here. Shari, this museum is not for you, zero Renaissance. You will find artists such as: El Anatsui, Motherwell, Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Warhol & Richard Serra. How many of those named did you know? I knew one before the visit.

We arrived at ten when the museum opened. They do have timed entries, covid left over, and we like to get the first slot whenever possible, before the crowds arrive. To my utter amazement we spent two and half hours in the museum. This includes 45 minutes on the second floor that was entirely devoted to Picasso. If you have read any blog post of mine in the past, where Picasso is mentioned, you know that he is likely my least favorite artist. Occasionally there is a piece that speaks to me but rarely. The exhibit was devoted just to his sculptures not his painting, so no blue period here. There was on piece I particularly liked it was titled “Women in Garden,” That isn’t what I saw, so I have renamed it Don Quixote, what I saw was Don Quixote on his mule (which he believes is a fine stead) and the windmills he was battling thinking they were Knights. What do you see?

One of the reasons I love art museums is that the experience is unique and personal to each visitor. 100 people can look at the same piece and have 100 different experiences and reactions to the art. It is also fun, to just watch the people, the men there with their significant other, not wanting to be and bored. The students trying hard to impress their instructor with their advent Gard take on each and every piece. My favorite, the “women who lunch” aren’t they just too much (you have to be a Sondheim fan to get that one or at least know the musical Company). They stand in their little clicks discussing the deep meanings of “Andy Warhol on Wallpaper.” Is there really any deep meaning to Andy Warhol art? Ok, I am not a fan, the one thing I do pick up from his art, is it really is a satire on commercialism or celebrity status.

The most unique and my favorite piece in the museum was a large interactive piece called “Matter of Time” by Richard Serra. The installation was commissioned specifically for the Guggenheim. It is a series of large metal pieces meant to be walked through and experienced. There is no right or wrong way to have this experience no specific start or end point (although one woman insisted, I was going the wrong way). The relationship to time and space was very interesting. I can’t really describe the experience adequately, some pieces were like a maze you entered and exited the same place, but the trip to the center was very unbalancing as it took longer than what it would appear it would when you look at the piece from the gallery above.

There was one room that did have a tad bit of impressionism. A photographer went to the garden that Monet based his “Waterlily” paintings on, set up a time lapse camera in the middle of the pond and let it go. It opened very blurry, representing what Monet must have actually seen as he had cataracts when he painted the series. Then it focuses and you get a view of the waterlilies from the middle of the pond.

The final exhibit, which is the first for most since we always start at the top floor and work our way down, was “Matter of Time” the interactive piece I discussed earlier. After three hours in the museum, it was almost time for our lunch. We have discovered that most museums have surprisingly good little restaurants in them. The Met in New York, a cafe in the Detroit Art Museum, Cafe Caumont in Aix-en-Provence. So naturally we figured that the Guggenheim would have a fabulous restaurant as well. We were quite wrong. They have two places inside the museum to eat; the Bar and the Bistro, choose the Bar, the Bistro is not worth the money. Not only was it not good, but it actually was also the worst meal of the trip. The special “butter” actually very bland humus had no flavor. The starters, while sounding great on the menu, either lacked any depth or had a broth that tasted like bad fish sauce.

My starter sounded like it would be other worldly, poached eggs over mashed potatoes with red pepper sauce. The potatoes tasted like out of the box instant, the red pepper sauce had no flavor, more like Campbell’s consommé, the eggs were poached nicely. Jerry had roasted leeks with cod in some kind of awful broth. The leeks were bitter and the broth just harsh and fishy.

The mains were worse, at least mine was. I had cod balls in a Basque sauce. The same sauce that I had last night that was fabulous. This was not even edible, bitter and sour. The cod tasted 3 weeks old and was very over cooked as it was mushy. Jerry’s steak while cooked correctly had way to much gristle and fat, we split it since I really could not eat mine. Dessert slightly redeemed the lunch, idiazabal cheesecake.

After lunch we were going to take the funicular up to the viewpoint, but to get the funicular was a half a mile walk up a steep hill, back and feet were not up to it. Instead, we went back to the hotel, Jerry went to buy some wine and arrange scope our transportation to San Sebastian for the next day.

Dinner was just down the street. The restaurant didn’t even open until 9. We were lucky to even find anything open on a Sunday. The restaurant is known for their grilled fish and steak. There were only two tables seated the entire night, us and a table of seven young men, they loved their ox, they had three huge steaks for the table plus several starters.

We opted for the tasting menu, to make everything easier. It also had pretty much everything on the menu we were interested in, and it came with a bottle of wine. The courses were as follows:

Amuse Buse

Pumpkin soup and Russian Salad (which I finally figured out is potato salad with tuna or salmon added to it.) The pumpkin soup just needed a bit of salt to bring out the flavor.

Salad

Basque Country Tomato Salad with Idiazabal Cheese. It was a nice salad with actual lettuce instead of just tomatoes and onions.

Entrée

Scrambled Eggs with Chanterelle Mushrooms. This is something my parents would eat for breakfast. It was really good with a very healthy portion of chanterelles.

The Main

Grilled Ox Chop with grilled red peppers and at home Chips (hand cut fries). First, the server brought out this huge piece of raw meat to show us exactly what we were getting. It was enough for at least three. When it came out it was on a sizzling plate, just like in Tarragona, and cooked rare, the plate was hot enough so you could continue to let it cook to the temperature you wanted. It was fantastic tasting, and we hate more than we should have.

Dessert

I don’t even know how to describe this, what it was called on the menu is not close to what it really is, the best I can say is a custard like omelet with flaming Chinchon poured over it (think anise) with a side of peppermint ice cream, and not candy cane peppermint either but very subtle.

This was the second great dinner in a row for Bilbao. When we came in, we were a bit early, and the kitchen was in plain view and getting the grill ready. Jerry snapped some pictures. He was scolded because the host thought he was taking pictures of the staff, which in Spain taking pictures of people requires permission. Interestingly enough, towards the end of the meal Jerry (not me) was invited into the kitchen so he could take more pictures of some steaks on the grill.

It was a really nice ending to our time in Bilbao. We slowly strolled home and went to bed.

Tomorrow will be our last full day in Spain, as we head back towards Paris, Londan and home.

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Photos

The Rising Sea
El Anatsui

Women in Garden
I say Don Quixote

Comments

[Sharon Hughson]

Interesting
Thanks for the heads up that this isn’t an art museum for me. Although Matter of Time looked quite interesting. It might be worth the visit just to experience that. Oh, one. Warhol. That’s the only artist name I recognized. But I am really NOT current on art. That is a LOT of beef. Is there any significance to calling it ox? Is that really different than beef we know in Montana? So sad that your trip is winding down. I will miss these blogs.