Bilbao

Well, I mean, I think Bilbao has been on the foodie’s radar for quite some time. And for those looking for a more moody sea than the Costa del Sol, the north offers plenty of clouds and waves.

Once upon a time, when I was a student in Madrid, I got to travel quite a lot around the country, with the notable exception of el Pais Vasco, or the Basque Country. The scope of the discussion on what has historically been the Basque County is a bit outside the realm of this blog. Again, I recommend doing a Google. However, as a basic premise, the Basque Country is made up of 4 provinces in Spain and an additional 3 in southern France.

The separatist movement that has garnered headlines since the fall of Franco in 1975 is the ETA, which has violently advocated for an independent Basque state rather than being a part of Spain. It does not aim to incorporate French territory. This follows decades of repression—Franco’s massacre in Guernica was famously captured by Picasso— and for decades expressions of Basque identity, including most notably the language, were made illegal.

It is with this recent history that Bilbao has recreated itself, moving beyond its industrial roots and heading straight for guidebook glory. A new branch of the Guggenheim Museum, which opened in 1997, arguably spiked the momentum of Bilbao’s renaissance.

This compact and very walkable city lies nestled in a valley between the green, sheep-dotted hills that run perpendicular to the sea, with the Nervión river running right through town to the Bay of Biscay. The Casco Viejo—or old town—lies on the east bank of the river, and with the river acting as a half-circular perimeter along the north and eastern sides of the center.

I arrived from France via BlaBlaCar, because after a week of craziness, I had neglected to get my bus ticket. My grandfather was in the hospital (all ok now, thank goodness!), and a friend working for the UN in Gaza had to leave on very short notice because of contract nonsense and ended up coming for a short three day trip. It was a great excuse to eat more cheese and drink more wine (somehow we ended up with just a lot of both of those things…yum), but rather distracted from trip planning. Not to mention I’m still in the middle of classes…

So, BlaBlaCar is like Uber but for long distances. It’s a carpooling service, which is kind of cool, but kind of strange. All of the social awkwardness of Uber is alive and well, but now for longer periods of time. Oh boy. The general premise is that the driver sets a pick-up and drop-off spot, and anyone with an account can book a seat in the car if they that route works for them. It was recommended by both my French teacher and one of the host families, so I thought I’d give it a try. Short of renting a car, I also didn’t have too much of a choice.

So I met Íñigo at the Biarritz bus station, and hopped in the car. After a confusing moment of trying to sort out what language we were going to operate in (Spanish, as it turns out), we hit the road to Bilbao. The bus takes about 2 1/2 hours, but with Íñigo we got there in a breezy hour and a half. He dropped me off close to my AirBnB, which was very kind of him, and I became a BlaBla believer.

In amongst my not-planning for this weekend trip, beyond coordinating a place to stay with my friend flying in from Malaga, we somehow didn’t cotton on to the fact that it was Carnival weekend. Oops. For those who have not been to Spain, this is a group of people who know how to party. And they love costumes. And drinking. Usually at the same time, and lasting well into the early hours of the morning. And quite a lot of the late-night partying happens right around the Casco Viejo, which happens to be just where we were staying. Of course. So once we’d met and gotten a few pintxos into our stomachs, we did what anyone else would do when faced with a massive street party and closed grocery stores. We got our hands on whatever bottle of alcohol came to hand and went to bed. In our case, it was 3 Euro local cider (honesty compels me to admit that it was very, very bad), and 3 Euro red wine (only slightly less bad).

A man stands with his group’s masks during Carnival.

Dealing with the aftereffects of bad alcohol at the advanced age of over 30, we had a leisurely Sunday morning before setting off to find brunch. Now, the European concept of brunch is quite different from that of the American concept in that a) it’s significantly later in the day (going kind of 11-2ish…I don’t know about you, but I just call that lunch), b) it doesn’t focus on breakfast foods—there is many more savory options on offer, with no muffins or waffles to be seen and c) there’s not as much alcohol. So we did a “healthy brunch” which was delicious but took an actual age to order and receive. I understand that things move slowly on Sundays, but come on. We had to get to the Guggenheim before our respective transportations left.

The crowning glory of Bilbao is undoubtedly the Guggenheim. The city has much to boast in the way of beautiful and historic architecture, but the museum on the river is something else. Sinuously eye-catching metal and glass dominates the water, and when packaged with pintxos and stunning landscape help Bilbao sell a very attractive package to tourists.

Honesty further compels me to admit that I am not an enormous fan of modern art. As one who is producing photos and hoping that they find an audience, I’m not going to shit on anyone else’s art. It’s just not a medium I find particularly accessible, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the effort that has gone into making it. The Guggenheim is good for stretching one’s artistic boundaries, and has a variety of methods to help make the art in the museum more understandable to the lay visitor.

In all, Bilbao gets many points. Great public transport (buses to everywhere, including to/from the airport), outstanding food (vegetarians might have to do some searching, but it’s there amongst the ham and seafood), beautiful architecture, incredibly lovely people, and of course plenty of urbane art to admire at leisure. This gem of the Basque Country is worth a stop.

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