Bilbao, 10/29 and 30

So this weekend I traveled with my friend Emma to Bilbao and San Sebastian. We caught the bus up there, a 5-6 hour ride early in the morning and got in a little after lunch time. Half way there we stopped for 25 minutes in Burgos for a break. Emma's travel guide said that the only thing to see here is the cathedral, but that it is worth the trip. We used our time to head over and it ended up being really cool and huge.

When we got there we then hopped on a train to go two stops out of town to get to our hostel. It was in more of an industrial area outside of town, but was the only option available when looking for hostels and it ended up being just fine. We each had our own bed in a private room with a sink and the train only took 5 minutes or so to get there.

Then we headed into town. We found a nice little restaurant with a menu of the day (3 courses bread and wine) for lunch and had fish from the area for the main course, something both of us were really wanting. After that we headed over to the Guggenheim. It is a really cool building and the architecture is just amazing. Bilbao was pretty much nothing and just an industrial town before the Guggenheim and now it is about half cultural and museums and half industrial depending on the area.

The museum had lots of different random shapes and different materials and was really fun to see. There were some statues around it too including El Poop (a giant puppy made of flowers) and another one that I think was called flowers or something similar that is made from metal but looks like metalic balloons used to make balloon animals.

Inside one 2 of the 3 floors were open. One of the permanent exhibitions is La Materia Del Tiempo which is giant sheets of metal in swirls or waves angled at different parts that we walked through. Each part is a little different in size and light that comes in and it was really cool to be part of the art.

Another exhibition was a room with columns with words running up and down it in different languages lighting up the walls in different ways and that was also really cool. The third floor had a temporary exhibition of flamenco art from Holland, and another temporary room had more modern art from people like Yves Klein, Andy Warhol and Basque artists like Jorge Oteiza. Lots of really big and more modern stuff.

It was starting to rain lightly as we got done, so we headed just one block down to the Museo de Bellas Artes which is said to have much better content and is a really great museum. There were a lot of really good paintings there ranging from the twelfth century to modern day especially in the temporary expositions. It included artists like El Greco, Rivera, Goya, Sorolla, Cassat, Zuloaga, Bacon, Chillida and Barceló.

After that we decided to go find pinxos for dinner. It is pronounced "pinchos" and are the form of tapas here. The difference is that in the rest of Spain a plate of tapas has a few on a small plate (2-4) but here there is just one that is a little bit bigger but also cheaper. The first place we went was in the old town area and the favorite from the Rick Steves book for having really good pinxos but also being cheap. They were 1,65 euoros each and a glass of wine cost the same. San Sebastian and this region are most famous for their food, and San Sebastian actually has more Michelin stars than Paris.

We got there a little on the early side so it wasn't too crowded, but it was really hard to choose what we wanted to try because they all looked so good! They consisted of a little slice of a baguette with at least 3 different things stacked on top and most of them with some sort of sauce too. There was a lot of sea food which I was really happy about since it is so local and fresh and then combinations of different vegetables meats and cheese too. My plate is the one on the right in the picture, with one tapa having cheese salmon and baby eel, and the other with octopus or somthing similar, a sweet and delicious sauce, and something else below that I don't remember. Both were absolutely delicious! And everything here was done so artfully and beautifully too. Of all the places we went this one might have been my favorite. We took our time eating our pinxos and sipping our wine just enjoying the night and where we were.

The true way to do pinxos is to have one or two at one place with a glass of wine (they are closer to half glasses or less making them cheaper and making people be able to last longer) and then go on to the next place. We wanted to try what looked best at different bars so we headed out. We headed for the main square in the old town. It is a small square plaza with coverings over the walkway around the outer edge. Pretty much every store front was a different pinxo place with people filling up every one and spilling out into the walkway. Instead of just going in the first place, we took a lap around going in to look at each place because we wanted only the best. We finally ended up at a place with two layers of pinxos on plates making up 3/4 of a circle and people all around. I started out with just one, but then decided after that one to try another because it was just so delicious! I felt silly and extremely touristy taking pictures, but it was worth it. We stayed here for a while and then headed out.

We weren't hungry any more but it was still a bit early and we were wondering what to do. As we walked around the plaza a bit more we saw a band setting up so decided to get a glass of wine at the bar right next to them and then hang out to listen. Something that was really cool was that they had 3 bikes set up, and when people rode them a little light lit up. People thought this was cool so started riding them, but they actually had them hooked up to their speakers and instruments so actually had the crowd powering them which everyone thought was a lot of fun. I couldn't get a picture of all of them, but it included an old guy on a saxaphone, a guy on a guitar and base guitar, a guy on the drums, a guy that switched between singing the flute and the trumpet, and then a guy on the cello but standing up with a long strap.

They were from California so all their songs were in English and I think Emma and I were some of the only people there who knew what they were saying. They did speak a couple sentences in Spanish between the songs and that was actually a lot of fun for us because it was very choppy and basic and sounded like the way you make fun of people when they speak a language not very well. But they were having a lot of fun with it and the crowd really appreciated the Spanish. At the end the guy with the cello and the guy on the flute had a couple duets. Except it was a mix of hip hop and classical. He had some sort of recording device set up so first he did some hip-hop beats into the microphone for about 30 seconds and then he clicked a button and the speakers kept on doing that on repeat. To this he added playing the cello and singing and the other guy did a combination of the flute and singing. That was really cool. After that was over we headed back to our hostel on a quick train ride after a very full and fun day.

For our second day we had the first half of the day in Bilbao before we caught a bus to San Sebastian. We were able to sleep in just a bit and then took the train 2 stops back into town. We headed from the train station, walked through their pretty little park, then headed back over to the old town area that we hadn't really had time to explore yet. There there are the seven streets, which are the seven original streets in the city. They are narrow very pretty pedestrian streets and were fun to walk around it and see the sights. The entire old area was actually pedestrian only and I really like that in these cities in Europe.

In part of the old town we also went to the market which was in a big old building and very crowded. The bottome floor had meat, the next floor had fish, and the top floor had a mix of fruits, veggies, bread, olives and similar foods, and one flower stand. Emma got a little sandwich that had a pickle as the outside and then a tuna filling in it. After we left I tried the traditional torta from the area (I don't remember the name right now) in the miniature version and that was delicious. It was a little pastry cup with a sweet custard filling. I really like how they have minitature versions of a lot of the things in pastry shops because I really enjoy trying the traditional foods from the area.

After that we wandered through the rest of town and along the river back toward the bus station getting a view of the Guggenheim for a bit farther away being able to see all of it at the same time. It is a very beautiful city but I can definitely tell that there are different areas that are still quite industrial feeling and others that are much nicer and more cultural and classy.