Trips

Tues., 10/18/16 – Bilbao
        We had our city tour this morning with a local Basque guide.  He gave us so much information I would have to write a book to include it all.  The economy of the Basque region is much better than that of Spain and they would like to not be part of Spain’s country or problems. 
        He explained how Bilbao got the Guggenheim Museum.  The building was built, is owned, and is run by Bilbao and paid for ($200 million) by Bilbao taxes.  It has revitalized the city.
        The museum represents CHANGE.  The building is constructed of limestone and of titanium sheets, which represent the future.  The “change” to the future is represented by the glass panels that connect limestone to titanium.
        Inside we marveled at the shapes of the “walls” – a piece of art in itself.  The first exhibit we “experienced” was an LED display of “Truisms” written in English, Basque, etc. that scrolled up the wall and down again inside out.  Soon we realized we could walk straight through what we thought was a blue wall.  Very provocative.
            Next we walked through the largest exhibit,  Richard Serra’s “The Matter of Time.”  We walked through spirals 20-feet high and were “to have a perception of space.”  It did inspire the possible meanings of the experience.

Guggenheim Museum	Guggenheim Museum Floor Plan
Guggenheim Museum	Guggenheim Museum
Guggenheim Museum	Guggenheim Museum Jenny Holzer - Truisms
Guggenheim Museum Richard Serra - The Matter of Time
Guggenheim Museum Richard Serra - The Matter of Time	Guggenheim Museum Richard Serra - The Matter of Time
Guggenheim Museum Richard Serra - The Matter of Time	Guggenheim Museum Every 20 minutes “Fog” is expelled outside to float “in ever changing forms” over the pool of water.
Guggenheim Museum	Guggenheim Museum - Koons' Tulips
On the second floor (no photos of the art work, just the building) we went into a round room and a square room with oil paintings hung on the walls.  The round room had portrait paintings that “changed” from realism to abstract art.  The square room had an Andy Warhol painting of faces of Marilyn Monroe and a graffiti painting by Babquait.  There was an exhibition of the “School of Paris” art and one centered around Frances Bacon.  On the third floor was art by two current Basque sculptors – how did the “empty spaces” in the sculpted forms impress the viewer?         I am glad our guide spent two hours helping us understand the intent of the exhibits and to admire the odd interior.         Next, our bus took us to “old town” Bilbao and we walked around. The Opera House was rebuilt after a fire in the 1800’s.  The ground floor was all markets with the opera theater built above them.  This helped pay for the building.  The “French” beret is a Basque invention.  Basque men wore them flat, not roguishly tipped to the side.
St. Nicholas Church	St. Nicholas Church
Street scenes	Street scenes
The beret - a Basque invention	Plaza Nueva - New Plaza
Basque country	Teatro Arriaga - the opera house
Teatro Arriaga - the opera house- photo of a poster	Santander Train Station
Street scenes	After a quick lunch in our room a group of us went with Judith on an interesting “learning and discovery” event to the neighboring seaside towns of Getxo and Portugale.  We walked to a bus stop, rode a city bus to Getxo, crossed the river on the gondola of the famous “Hanging Bridge”  (the Vizcaya Bridge).      The Vizcaya Bridge was the 1893 solution to a road across the river that allowed ships with tall masts to pass underneath.  The suspended gondola holds six passenger cars in the middle with passengers on either side.  It crosses like a zip line high over the water.  The supports are like the Eifel Tower structure.
Vizcaya Bridge
Vizcaya Bridge	Vizcaya Bridge - "Gondola"
Vizcaya Bridge - "Gondola"	Vizcaya Bridge - "Gondola"
Harbor opening from the gondola	The town has a very welcome moving ramp up to the top of the town (the town is very hilly) where we strolled around, looked at the Basilica of Santa Maria and the Torre Salazar, took in the view to the ocean, and then walked down the steep ramps and stairs back to the riverside to meet Judith at a hotel to enjoy a glass of patxaran, a sloe berry liquor.
	Tourist Office
Group of old men in front of the Victor de Chavarri Monument to Metallurgy	Victor de Chavarri Monument to Metallurgy
Moving ramp to the upper town	Street scene
Symbol for the Way of St. James	Basilica de Santa Maria
Tower Salazar	To return home we took a ferryboat back across the river, walked to the Metro, and took the underground route back to Bilbao. Lots of different modes of transportation today!            Dinner tonight was included.  We ate six different pintxos and fruit for dessert.  Vegetables are a rarity!
Ferry across the Estuary of Bilbao	Subway back to town
Subway map	Subway
Dinner - Pintxos	Dinner - Pintxos

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