"We Are Not Spain | France!"

That was the banner on a building in one of the squares in Bilbao.  Guess that says it all!

Sunday, we said good bye to Barcelona and flew to Bilbao in northern Spain in the Basque country.  Flying into Bilbao, the countryside, to me at least, looked much like the southern part of Vancouver Island: evergreen-covered hills, some of which had been logged, interspersed with deciduous trees.  It was certainly a big change from the arid land and palm trees where we'd been.  Once we'd settled into our hotel (the NH Collection Villa de Bilbao), we had a quiet night.  Most restaurants are closed here on Sundays so we ate at the hotel's.  We were looking forward to having a totally unstructured day Monday with nothing booked and no specific plans.

In the morning after breakfast - which involved freshly cooked eggs, what a treat! - we walked along Gran Via, a main boulevard and the street our hotel is on, to the old town.  Along the way, we passed some high end stores and were also impressed with the buildings.  Many are very much like you would see Paris and mostly built around the early 1900s and many with wrought-iron balconies.  The city seemed to have a very "continental" flavour rather than specifically Spanish - not sure that makes sense but it is what we both felt.  At times, it seemed the city could have been in Germany, France or even CH by the way the buildings looked.  The following photos were taken along Gran Via before we crossed the river.

We had decided to forego a walking tour.  One started at 9:30 and we weren’t up for another early start.  As it is, we enjoyed just walking around with no agenda.  We crossed the river to the old town admiring the style and architecture of the train station as we did.  

The old town, unsurprisingly, is a labyrinth of narrow pedestrian streets.  We just walked up and down them finally ending up in a little square where we stopped for a drink.  We weren’t hungry as the hotel breakfast is more than ample and, thankfully, has freshly cooked eggs.  It wasn't lost on me that sitting in the square sipping a glass of wine was probably the last time I would be able to do that until probably next spring or summer!  It was on that square where we spotted the sign I used at the title for the blog.  Like in Catalonia (where Barcelona is), here everything is also signed in two languages - this time in Basque as well as Spanish.  The former appears to have no relation at all to the latter and seems to have a lot of 'x's in it. 

A Theatre

I have no idea what this was about but thought it needed a photo!  Who knows what that shop was sellling?

One the square where we had our drink.  Note the sign hanging from the balcony.

It was a nice day and not too warm – around 20 or 21 degrees – so we just kept walking.  The stroll along the river from the old town toward the modern part of the city was beautiful.  We finally ended up across from the Guggenheim Museum which would be tomorrow’s destination.  This gave us the chance to take lots of photos of the very unique building from both sides of the river.  

And, here are some photos of the Guggenheim - more to come when we visit it Tuesday.

We also laughed at the various names given to some of the services here - maybe it was just the mood we were in.  However, Bilbobus and Bilbo Garbi amused us.  Oh, we also found a Bilbo Boat and mused about maybe there was a Bilbo Tram although the trams seem to have another name.  All that was missing was Bilbo Baggins!

As a last note for the blog, I wanted to mention something about the restaurants.  We asked at the desk for some recommendations around 7 pm that evening.  We set off to check out the three suggestions we were given.  Well, the first two didn't open until 8 and the last one until 9.  While that is true for most of Spain, we could usually find some that were open all day.  That seemed a bit more difficult here, or at least near our hotel.  While there were some tapas bars, they didn't look that appealing.  The other thing was that the restaurants we checked out were expensive.  We waited until 8 and then went to one.  We were not impressed to find the 3 course menu was 90 Euros and even the main courses all started around 28 or 30 (and went up from there)!   So, we walked a few doors down to a place called Goiko which was basically a burger joint.  We managed to get a table there but only after we promised the manager that we would be gone by 9:45 when our table was booked.  Of course, we would be; we'd be in bed by then!  The burgers were good and certainly didn't cost $50!