Bilbao

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Just a short hour or so bus trip from San Sebastian we were there in no time. Found our little pension tucked away and our host speaks NO ENGLISH at all! As we made our way through the instructions given we were off wondering yet again to look around the city. We were based in the outskirts of town but it was still just a short walk to get anywhere. First on our agenda was the Guggenheim Museum.

This building is a piece of modern art in itself built by Frank Gehry in 1997. As you get closer to it you see glimpses of metal (titanium actually) between the streets and then there it is. Out the front of the museum is a massive living sculpture of a dog with different colour pansy’s planted over it to provide the dog’s coat, very impressive.

Once you make it past staring at the outside of the museum and venture inside the audio commentary provided tells us that there are no 90’ angles in the building aside from the floor. Everything has a curve, slant or tilt and all this helps to complement the artwork inside. The Guggenheim by the way is a modern art museum. Two of the attractions I enjoyed most were “The Matter of Time” which was made out of these massive iron pieces that fit into themselves to make circular structures and well it’s really hard to describe but was awesome by Richard Serra. The second standout section was “I Want to Believe” by Cai Guo-Qiang, never heard of him? He was one of the core members of the creative team that planned the opening and closing ceremonies of the e Beijing Olympics. His display was awesome and he does a lot of work with gun-powder and all I can say is wow and see if you can find some of his work on Google.

We were lucky enough to catch up with some people we met in Athens and again in Santorini, Alejandro who lives in Bilbao (and has given us lots of valuable advice on what to see and do in Spain) and his Das Carlos, who lives in Mendoza, Argentina. We met with them for tapas and a walk around the outskirts of Bilbao near the port. Was a really pleasant evening and we had such a good time walking around and all to soon it was time for Jay & me to catch a bus back into town.
Whilst we were in Bilbao there were 2 protests that we happened to cross paths with, the first was a bunch of pensioners protesting about something, as you can imagine a very subdued but somewhat effective protest in that is stopped traffic. On our last day the Metro/Transport union held a strike and this was a lot more vocal and lively we had wondered onto the back of the rally just getting started so stopped and watched for a bit then Jay and I continued on our day.
We crossed over this lovely old bridge and had lunch in the park and then explored the other side of town and to take in the sights and more of the old buildings and came back around to the bridge we had crossed not an hour earlier and there were police and ambulances blocking the bridge and 2 guys hanging off either side of it.

We sat and watch for a while and then there some rather loud banges and the crowds of supporters ran from the bridge with police in full riot gear in pursuit and firing rubber balls at them. These things looked like they were made from solid rubber and were a bit bigger than a tennis ball. This kept us entertained for a while but when the supporters started to congregate around us we figured was time to move on and watch from a different vantage point. Anyway, the police cut the boys down once the appropriate safety precautions were taken and they won the day.

Anyway, as with Madrid and San Sebastian you spend your time walking around looking up for the statues that are planted on top of buildings, looking down to watch your feet on the cobbled streets so you don’t roll and ankle and looking around trying to take in everything . The visit to the Museum as fantastic and there was a lot to see and take in and would recommend anyone visiting Spain to try and get up to Bilbao even to 2 days to look around.

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