Bilbao

The Guggenheim Bilbao

I’ll try to be brief from now on so I can catch up with the stories from the north of Spain.

On Sunday morning I took an hour long bus ride from San Sebastian to Bilbao. Walked from the bus station to the hostel and fortunately they did have a room available so that saved me some time as I did not have to walk around looking for a place to stay. Bilbao (population: 350,000) is more of a commercial city with a small and quaint “Casco Viejo” (old town) and the world famous Guggenheim museum. Other than these 2 things there is not much more to in Bilbao, so spending only one day there was just enough. The museum building is amazing: both inside and outside. It has a shape which cannot really be described. From what I have been told for example the building has no corners that form a right angle: nor the walls, nor the columns. Most walls for example are curved and the columns have wider or narrower angles than a 90 degree angle. Titanium panels were used to cover some of the walls of the building; something which was a first in the history of architecture. The intent of these panels, as explained by the architect himself in the audio-guide, is to resemble the fish scales of some fishes he used to play with when he was a kid. The museum, which exhibits modern and contemporary art, consists of both a permanent collection and one big temporary exhibition. Unfortunately the permanent collection was closed and I was able to only see the temporary collection: Art in the USA, 300 years of innovation. The exhibition was a collection of works from American born artists and artist born elsewhere but who had become American. There were for example works by Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. Unfortunately they do not allow you to take photographs inside the museum so I have no pictures from the exhibition nor from the inside of the building. The museum is located right next to the Nervion River so the natural thing to do is to walk along the river-walk to see some of the art exhibited on the exterior of the museum such as the big iron spider. After visiting the museum I continued walking along the river all the way to the old town. Once again it was surprising to see how much people were out in the streets walking, having some tapas and enjoying a caña (a glass of beer) or a glass wine. Definitely that is the way of living in Spain. I found lots of people on all the streets I took on my walk back to the hotel.

Museum Entrance - Another view of the Guggenheim Bilbao

Riverwalk - Casco Viejo (Old Town)

That night I got back to the hotel and was able to watch some news on a TV: Raul Castro was officially becoming the new “president” in Cuba. It was as if I had never left Miami and the Spanish broadcasting station of Miami where the theme “du jour” toute les jours (everyday) is Cuba and one of the Castro brothers. But oh well!! It was good to finally watch some news on TV. The previous hostels were I had stayed had no TV. Oh…and apart from that I’m not sure if I mentioned this before but I had no TV in my apartment in Paris (there was no TV at the apartment at all) and there is no TV here in Madrid either. I guess it is not meant for me to have a TV while on this sabbatical.