(Note -
the next few dailies are my trip e-mails expanded and with photos)
September 17, 2004 (afternoon)
First bits first - Am alive, well,
sitting in a netcafe/cafe/bar in Melide, our first stop in A Coruña.
Have been away for almost a week and to say that this trip has been
amazing would be a massive understatement.
Last Sunday arrived in Bilbao. The
airport looks like a smaller and emptier version of Dulles with the
same concrete swoop and swirl.
Made it through picked up bags and
customs without incident - lines were long in the non-EU line but after
spending over an hour just to get through internal security at Heathrow
it seemed a breeze. Signs were in English as well as Basque and Spanish
but it still took two information desk assistants, some awkward question
phrasing and half an hour for me to find a bathroom to change in, a
cash machine, and the bus into town.
(above) Signs in Castilian and Euskera.
(Was struck - and still am - with the
lack of English spoken here. Some signs have English and occasionally
occasionally you'll here it but most people will soldier through Spanish
with you no matter what. I've had people know I was from the US, offer
me printed information in English and still converse with me in my still
stilted present-tense-only Spanish. And everyone tells us that we speak
good Castilian - I guess its not as awkward as it sometimes feels. Or
it is a nation of flatterers.)
Got into the city at about 2 - bus
ride was about 20 minutes through country/suburbs. It's all pretty standard
highway, but the entry into the city is fantastic - you come out of
a tunnel and there it is before you with the Guggenheim exploding on
the left and the rest of the city unfolding in front in a mad combination
of nineteenth-century and modern architecture to the front and the right.
Had about 5 hours before I had to meet
SS the SS and Thali.
On the plane I'd checked the guidebook but most of the museums closed
by 2 so I spent a while walking around the city (relatively clean and
beautiful beautiful with what looked like 19th century stone architecture,
lots of parks, and a river running through it all) and writing while
sitting in the park.
(above) A regular but gorgeous building facade in
Bilbao: statues, columns, marble oh my!
(above) The view of the city from the front of the
Guggenheim - one of the old buildings with the back of Koons' "Puppy"
flower sculpture. Spent about half an hour sitting on one of the many
benches out front, looking through guidebooks and trying to figure out
where to go next.
(above) Part of the main park in the middle of the
city. Would give you the name but no maps I have on hand seem to have
the name.
(above) Tiles in the park with seals for Castille,
Leon.
When I got tired of lazing around the
park I got some coffee at one of the museum bars (a cafe solo - those
things are fierce). Ordering the cafe was a bit of a stress. Was sooo
nervous that I would say something ridiculous or improper and I rehearsed
my sentence ("una taza de cafe, por favor") about a million
times before I said it. Made it through the transaction, including asking
if I could sit at a table instead of at the bar, without incident. This
all made me feel a little better.
Around 5 I went to the Guggenheim Bilbao,
where I was supposed to meet SS the SS and Thali.
It is beautiful.
(above) Two parts of the titanium outside of the
Guggenheim Bilbao with blue sky and clouds in the background
(above) The outside of the museum
The pictures of the outside only give
you a hint - the interior (where we couldn't take photos) is just as
lyrical with soft curves of hard stone and light streaming in from everywhere.
The audio tour said that it was all constructed using computer models,
the pieces cut by robots but despite the heavy technology used to build
it the place feels absolutely organic.
Luckily the coat check staff didn't
balk at the size of my bag and I started in at the museum. There was
a Rothko exhibit there which thrilled me, as well as a pop art exhibit
with some Lichtensteins, Warhols, etc. But even with the phenomenal
art really the building is what was most extraordinary - long after
I'd looked through the exhibits I sat in the main hall with a book and
read bathed by the late afternoon Bilbao sunlight off the nearby river.
Freaking phenomenal.
At 7, met up with SS the SS and Thali
at the information desk and we headed back via tram to our pensione
in the Casco Viejo quarter. Two double beds with a sink in the room
and bathrooms down the hall. Talked a little, unpacked minimally, checked
the guidebook, then headed out then to find some dinner.
(above) A very happy me with backpack, after meeting
up with SS the SS and Thali
The Casco Viejo is even quainter than
the main part of Bilbao - imagine some Disneyland-esque French Quarter
looking place with old buildings, wrought iron, quiet streets. Then
again the quiet could have been because it was late.
(above) An empty nightime street in the Casco Viejo.
Saw a lot of those.
(above) Daytime version of another street. Check
out the adorable slate streets, wrought iron detailings, streetlamps.
Balconies everywhere!
(above) Another daytime view, closeup of a balcony
from below. Notice the stamped tin below the balconies, the large windows
leading out. Gorgeous.
First we decided to figure travel arrangements
for the next day. We saw on the map that there were a couple of train
stations so we went to each to find out travel etc times. The FEVE station
across the river had a nice woman at the desk but she told us that we
needed the national RENFE service instead. We found the station on the
map but couldn't seem to locate it on the street. Thali asked a nice
man who seemed really perplexed by our question, especially when he
pointed to the building directly behind us and said that was the (clearly
labeled) RENFE station. Whoops.
(above) the FEVE station, easily identifiable and
across the river from the Casco Viejo
(above) Thali and SS the SS pointing at the map,
trying to find the RENFE station.
Got up to the desks which were closed
but saw that the one train a day to Sarria (where we were planning on
picking up the pilgrim route) left at 9:15. Couldn't buy our tickets
until the next day but we figured out what time we had to get there
and settled out to go find some food. We couldn't find the restaurants
mentioned in the guide but did see the Cathedral de Santiago there in
the city.
(above) Facade of the Cathedral. I'd thought that
churches were always open but this was the first of many that
we found to be closed.
After looking at a ton of places we
finally grabbed a menu del dia dinner with plenty of rioja wine at a
taverna with a lot of x, q, and z´s in the name (the more of those
the more Basque a place is, it seems). We'd forgotten to bring the phrasebook
with us and the waiter wasn't really interested in explaining the selections
so we just picked something that sounded reasonable and concentrated
on drinking the wine.
(above) Thali devouring her melon for the camera.
She really doesn't eat like that most of the time.
Next morning we headed off to Sarria - and I´m almost out of
time. Will write later. Much love!
-Moryma.
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