Saturday 24 March 2012
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| Nicole, Eva, Roman, Charles and Dian |
Eva and Roman joined us for coffee in the morning, and after we bade them farewell they coasted down the hill, (the only way they thought the van would start). Shortly afterwards we met a woman from Basque country who gave us a few tips on the area and was very helpful. We did a bit of beach combing, art and walking around before leaving.
A lunch in the little town of Langre was just the pit stop we needed before going into Bilbao. The town had churches that must have been the inspiration for many of the early missions in California. We saw eagles flying and more pilgrims with shells on their packs as we drove.
We took a toll road in order to save some time, but couldn't understand why our GPS was going haywire until the worker at the tollbooth explained that it was a brand new road and that no GPS had it in their systems yet. We trembled slightly as he calculated what our fee was, then laughed when we saw it was only €55 cents!
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| A couple |
We found a great parking spot only available to non-Guggenheim employees on Saturdays and walked into the museum. Charles got in for free with his press pass, and Nicole and Dian got discounts and free audio tours with their student and teacher cards respectively. The woman at the front desk was pleased to hear we lived near some of Frank Gehry's most famous buildings, in California.
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| Even the bathroom tiles make a statement |
After touring the museum for a few hours we felt sufficiently stuffed with culture, but our stomachs were another matter. We went into a Subway/Ben and Jerry's to get sandwiches, and Nicole gave in and bought a banana split. We all really had to hound the lady on duty because she kept making "mistakes" on our price, and favored all other customers before she came to us.
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| Jeff Koons' "Flowers" |
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| Jeff Koons' "Puppy" |
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| The view coming into the Guggenheim area |
Finishing our sandwiches we ran to the Belles Artes museum which had been recommended to us by a few people as the not-so-flashy museum of Bilbao, but one with a lot of great pieces of art. They were right, although by the time we walked there (only a five minute walk) they were 25 minutes from closing, and as the ladies at the front desk said shrugging their shoulders in an unconfident way, "You'll have to run if you want to see it all." Challenge accepted. Charles got in for free again, and so did Dian, and Nicole got a discount, so we decided to go for it. We saw THE WHOLE THING and Nicole even had time to write down some artists and pieces to look up later.
As if that wasn't enough we RAN back for the fire artpiece exhibited every night in the water surrounding the Guggenheim. It went on every five minutes from 8:00 to 8:30, and we nearly jumped out of our skin every time it started up because it was so loud. We were shooting some photos when we heard a voice say, "You can't make a photo here!" It was Roman! He and Eva were meeting a friend there, and we had a chance to say goodbye to them again and wish them a good ride back to Austria, and they wished us a good rest of our trip.
We spent the night in the same parking spot, and Charles went to a nearby Internet cafe and worked a while longer.
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| Outside Belles Artes |
Eva and Roman joined us for coffee in the morning, and after we bade them farewell they coasted down the hill, (the only way they thought the van would start). Shortly afterwards we met a woman from Basque country who gave us a few tips on the area and was very helpful. We did a bit of beach combing, art and walking around before leaving.
We found a great parking spot only available to non-Guggenheim employees on Saturdays and walked into the museum. Charles got in for free with his press pass, and Nicole and Dian got discounts and free audio tours with their student and teacher cards respectively. The woman at the front desk was pleased to hear we lived near some of Frank Gehry's most famous buildings, in California.
Finishing our sandwiches we ran to the Belles Artes museum which had been recommended to us by a few people as the not-so-flashy museum of Bilbao, but one with a lot of great pieces of art. They were right, although by the time we walked there (only a five minute walk) they were 25 minutes from closing, and as the ladies at the front desk said shrugging their shoulders in an unconfident way, "You'll have to run if you want to see it all." Challenge accepted. Charles got in for free again, and so did Dian, and Nicole got a discount, so we decided to go for it. We saw THE WHOLE THING and Nicole even had time to write down some artists and pieces to look up later.
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