58 - El Hobbit - Bilbao
Saturday, April 20 - Bilbao
I managed to wake up to my alarm and was out of bed by 8 AM but easily could have kept sleeping. A look on Google Maps last night indicated a 2 - 2.5 hour drive to Bilbao and I wanted to be sure I had enough daylight to get the most out of my visit.
The drive down to Spain went smoothly and I was impressed when I made a turn and saw the mountains of Urkiola Natural Park; I was very tempted to make a detour to inspect. Shortly after seeing the mountains, I passed through a tunnel and started smelling sulfur on the other side, there must be a papermill or something operating nearby. The odor reminded me of my time visiting plants that process similar materials and also have to contend with sulfur byproducts.
I arrived in Bilbao around 10:30AM. It was much too early to check into the hotel but I'd set a parking garage close to the hotel as my destination. Without further ado, I parked in a surprisingly spacious parking garage and made my way to the tourist info office. At the tourist office, I received a map of the city and a few recommendations of the "must do's" in the city.
From there, it was just a short walk to the casco viejo. The old town was nice: cobbled pedestrian streets, bars/cafés, and a few shops. The place felt lived in and life human sized with just a bit of the touristic veneer, I think there were maybe 3 plazas of note which seemed a decent number for how small the old town is. After making several passes through streets, I made my way to the ribera mercado and then Plaza Nueva, where I had a pintxos lunch. While I didn't get it at the river market, I'd seen someone else come away with a pintxo featuring a trimmed artichoke atop a morsel of bread and the image haunted me and set an unreasonable standard haha.
From lunch, I made my way up to a park (Etxebarria) and decided to swing by the basilica; I hadn't originally planned to see the basilica given it was out of the way, but the taunting of the steeple was too great. Overall, the basilica was closed and wasn't worth the extra walk but you miss all the shots you don't take. At least it was a pleasant neighborhood and a sunny walk.
From the basilica, I worked my way back through the old town looped back to the car to grab my stuff and check into the hotel. After freshening up at the hotel, I walked through the Abando part of town as I sought out the city's main attraction: the Guggenheim museum.
I spent about 3 hours in the museum. It featured an audio-guide via one's phone but I found the audio loading to sometimes be unreliable; still it was nice to hear a bit about the pieces at (mostly) my own pace. The fixed exhibit in the long hall was interesting, a bunch of flowing steel sheets calling to be touched and traced. The third floor featured abstractism and pre-pop art, I found it surprising how many pieces got away with being untitled. I jumped from the 1st to 3rd floor as I'd virtually cued to enter a mirror room; turns out the virtual cue didn't do anything and I waited 20 minutes for 45 seconds in a room of mirrors and lights with an elderly Dutch couple. The 2nd floor was dedicated to pop-art and an exhibit about an Italian artist; I liked the pieces that had a bit of humor/irony to them, those moments of "oh, that's clever". I still don't understand what propelled Andy Warhol to such fame; if his whole point was mass-producing art from mass-production techniques in a show of futility, then I think it's a fairly "meh" point to make.
From museum, I crossed over the river and worked my way to the funicular to get a view from above of the city. The funicular loading system was a lot slower than I would have expected; even the locals seemed to wonder what was going on.
At the top, there was also a path to the San Roke church observation point; I figured I'd give this one a shot too hoping it would have a better view of the sea. Turns out the 2km route was to reach a small church who's view of the sea was completely obstructed by trees but offered a small window to view the Bilbao airport 🤦♂️. A sign near the church mentioned that the mountains served as key defensive positions during the Spanish Civil War; that's about all my rudimentary Spanish could glimpse from the text (mostly from pictures 😅)
From the funicular, I crossed back into Abando section. It being almost 8, I poked my head into a few restaurants while working my way towards the Plaza Euskadi. I did eventually settle on one, I asked for "un vaso de vino tinto" and pointed at a seafood salad (shrimp, octopus, peppers, and onions, swimming in olive oil) for a bite. I'd thought it would just be a snack before a later dinner but it turned out to be my dinner for the night as it surprisingly sated me for the rest of the evening.
The last light from the setting sun seemed to last until almost 10PM, once it faded completely I had completed my path along the river and had started making the route back to the hotel through Iturrizar park, which had some nice water features.
Overall, I enjoyed my day here in Bilbao. It's a nice city so I hesitate to say it but... I can't help but define Bilbao by the other cities I've visited. It felt a bit like Barcelona, Pamplona, Tudela, and San Sebastian all in one; the balance of all these aspects makes Bilbao special but I feel each facet was done better by the "more specialized" cities. I don't know if that makes sense (life isn't about which city does any one thing "best"). To be fair these were the thoughts I was developing on my walk back to the hotel; perhaps being tired from walking 14 miles today was clouding some of my thoughts.
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