Ken's 2nd ancestral tour through Spain -
Day Four - Bilbao

Wednesday 12th May 2004 Superb breakfast as one would expect in an expensive hotel but gloomy, drizzly weather. We walked across the bridge & round what seems to have been a railway yard, in the East corner of which sits the Guggenheim, a fantasical contraption of exotic shapes. As we were too early, we walked over the bridge by it to photo it from the NE side. Inside, it was just as shapely as outside but in different ways. We gather that the shapes are computer controlled, which made cutting the stone cladding much easier & cut the cost massively.

The Bilbao Guggenheim Museum on a nasty day

The normal Crumbly rate is E6 but we got it for E4.50 because of a shut floor. Unfortunately, most (this is generous) of the art inside is crap. They were putting in a James Rosenquist show, which will also be crap. It took less than two hours to go round it & the conclusion is that the building is a great work of art or sculpture & should, but does not, house great art. We had coffee (E1.43 each) & walked round the river bank to the Old Town, which we explored, including the Market, which was like the one at Cadiz only bigger & full of enticing-looking food.

	In Bilbao Market

Then, to the Basque Museum, which was full of Basque antiquities & well worth the E2.50 each. We found a café, Bar Brasil, for toasted sandwiches & coffees (E13.30 for 2), then walked back up the main street, Grand Via Don Diego Lopez de Haro, buying postcards & diverting to the ultra-slow service post office for stamps. By our bridge sits the excellent Art Museum, with a much more extensive & better collection than the Gug. And it was free for Crumblies! There was a special show of fantasy paintings of cities, starting with ones from Pompeii. This was good, as it included artists we had never heard of. Another special was of Jose Etchebarria, local hero they can keep. We left that at 1730, worn out, having started out at 0930ish. Bilbao is much better than it is cracked down to be. We asked at the hotel for a dinner recommendation which was Basque. They sent us to the Casa Vasca, nothing to eat before nine, as is usual in this weird country & we ate quite well, me having a local cod thing after Cantabrian fish soup. The bill, including a bottle of Rioja, was E55.75, which was a bit steep by local standards.

Basque Museum

Old Town street

Cathedral