I have been waiting to visit Bilbao with the sole purpose of seeing this beauty shimmering in the light showing off its curves ever since it opened. San Sebastían was about food and Bilbao was about Frank Gehry’s glorious Guggenheim Museum. My photos don’t do justice to this building, they were taken in a rush on leaving the city to make our way back home plus it was already 10.30 am which is pushing it with outside photography. Having waited for so many years to see it I was not disappointed one little bit. Even Bikerboy who would not be visiting Bilbao to see a museum out of his own volition, on clapping his eyes the words, “Wow…look at that!” came out of his mouth. And WOW is the right word.
As you drive into the city from the motorway through the tunnel as soon as you come out of the darkness of the tunnel the building hits your vision straight away. It’s visible from all sorts of angles around the city, and the site of it from the other side of the river (the last few photos below) give you a very different point of view from the main street entrance. It’s certainly a building that requires you to stand some distance to admire it fully. Do me a favour if you visit, take a photo of it from one of the little narrow old streets, capturing the contrast between the old city street and these glistening scales rising above it at the end of the street. It was this photo capture in the Saturday Times magazine all those years ago that caught my attention, sold me the visit and is still imprinted in my memory. I was just too darn stupid not to take it…but there’s always next time, I hope with all the fast moving construction happening all over the city some of those old streets will remain.
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I know…I know...this is not a post about the mad week leading up to the big event…the wedding… and how it all went so off plan…so off plan in fact we had to draw up a whole new plan on the 11th hour…but I’ve tried now three times to start typing and got stuck. So just allow me to tell you what I can put down on screen and get my flow back, I should think once it starts rolling out of my fingertips I’ll type about it non-stop. Right now I feel like a naughty school girl who hasn’t finished her project but I promise to post it this week. In the meantime I really want to share the two cities we visited two weeks ago.
San Sebastián For A Pintxo Lunch
I can not tell you just how excited I have been about going to San Sebastián, so excited. It’s described as the food capital of Spain and it’s suppose to have the most Michelin star restaurants per square mile than anywhere else. Not that I think Michelin starred restaurants are the best but it leaves you with the impression the place is paved with good eateries and delicious Spanish produce awaiting you. You can see how it made my childlike enthusiasm reach fever pitch when we were driving into the city for a Spanish style pintxos lunch. Pintxos or pinchos are a variation on tapas, very often served on bread and traditionally has a cocktail stick through it, to keep it all together.
Driving Into San Sebastián In August Is Madness
Urmm…well it was a little frustrating to say the least trying to deal with the traffic mid morning, midweek, mid August! Madness to drive in. We drove around for over an hour in circles to find a car park that wasn’t full with queues around the block. Bikerboy’s patience was wearing thin and we started to make our way back to the small town we were staying in, Getaria. On the way out of the city through the craze of interconnecting roads we accidently ended up on the outskirts of the city by the university. We parked to get our bearings on the GPS, decided to give it one last shot to find a way of getting back into the city. Bikerboy found the article in the Guardian recommending to park for free around the university and catch the bus into the centre only 3 stops away. We did. After asking for some help from a French tourist at the bus stop doing the same. Should explain here, ‘I’ asked for help. In my experience men don’t stop to ask strangers for help with directions.
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