Bilbao New and Old

After flight delays, all 13 members of our group are now here. We had the usual orientation meeting followed by a city tour led by a local guide.

The tour began with a bus excursion around the "new" city (new from the 1870s, that is). Our only stop along the bus ride was at a civic center which was originally a wine warehouse. 

It was proposed as the site of the Guggenheim Museum (see below), but didn't meet specifications for that. Now it has multiple functions, containing a public library, public fitness center with multiple swimming pools, public radio station, city government offices, and more.

One of the swimming pools is on the roof, and the bottom of the pool is glass panels that can be viewed from the ground floor.

Steel pillars needed to be installed to support the roof, and on the ground floor these are covered by pillar sculptures by various artists in all kinds of styles.

After the bus ride, we walked from the "new" city hall (1909) into the "old" town. Walking is necessary because the streets are too narrow for vehicles. While many of the buildings in the old city date back to the 1400s, the facades are newer.

The Basque region is semi-autonomous, with its own language, culture, flag, legislature, tax system, etc. Spain actually has an "embassy" in this city, even though we are technically in Spain. The Basque flag, which looks like a mis-colored Union Jack, flies everywhere. The Spanish flag is seldom seen.

The heart of the old city is a plaza that is completely surrounded by residential apartments on upper floors, with shops on the ground floors. While there are a few shops that provide other goods or services, the vast majority are "bars." In Bilbao, a bar is generally a cafe that serves "pintxas" (PEEN-chahs) to eat, and wine and beer to drink, with very few places to sit. Patrons generally stand to eat and drink.

Pintxas are the Basque version of tapas -- although the Basque people are greatly offended by that comparison. Pixtxas are small portions, but they are generally more substantial than tapas, with lots of meat or seafood and cheese. They are almost always consumed with wine or beer, both of which are unbelievably cheap here. A glass of good wine is usually less than 3 Euros!

On this Sunday afternoon, a major activity in the plaza is the trading of sports cards -- mostly of soccer players. Children, teens, and old men race around with their cards to trade and lists of cards they are seeking. It's clearly important business.

From the plaza, we took a tram ride across town to the Guggenheim Museum. When the Guggenheim Foundation of New York was seeking to build a museum in Europe, they focused on Saltzburg, Austria. But Salzburg delayed the project because of the celebration of a Mozart festival. Bilbao stepped in and offered to build the museum and pay the Foundation several millions of dollars if they would name it and curate the collection.

The projection was that Guggenheim Europe would attract about 250,000 visitors in the first year. The actual number was over a million, and the trend has continued. We contributed to that number by visiting today.

The architecture of the building is a big draw, probably more than the modern art inside. But some of that is pretty interesting, too.

After a couple hours in the Guggenheim, we walked to the Bilbao Museum of Fine Arts, which is in a much less interesting building only a few blocks away. But we arrived at 2:59 p.m., and on Sundays that museum closes at 3 p.m. So we had all of the art we were going to get for the day.

We walked back to the hotel along the river, and rested a bit before meeting our tour leader for a walk to the funicular for a view of the city from the top to the hill. Bilbao is only 10 miles from the Bay of Biscay and has always been a major seaport.

We could see the sea from the hilltop, and also could appreciate why the locals call the city, "The Hole," because it rests in a valley surrounded the foothills of the Pyrenees.

After descending from the overlook, we went to a restaurant the opened especially for us Americans at the unbelievably early hour of 7 p.m. Spaniards never eat their evening meal earlier than 8 or 9 o'clock and often later. So this was a major inconvenience for the restaurant. But they fed us well, nevertheless.