Guggenheim and Museo de Bella Artes in Bilbao

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Friday October 2

We were going to take the metro into Bilbao but it was impossible to find a parking spot anywhere nearby so we ended up driving into the City.  Once again I am very thankful for our trusty iPad and its navigational abilities. We finally find a parking garage there and walk to the Guggenheim along the river. We pass this big mural under a bridge.image

Soon we see the museum, which is a very impressive building, covered in thin sheets of titanium.  I quite like this big spider sculpture.image Another view near the entrance.

imageThe Guggenheim Bilbao was not what we expected, and judging by the looks on the other visitors’ faces, not what they expected either.  I did like the Richard Serra installation called The Matter of Time.  Here is a picture of a picture and then a not very good photo of Bob walking through one of the sculptures to give an idea of its immense size. image image

An interactive art work.  Can you spot me?

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There were only two other exhibits, one of an artist named Jean-Michel Besquiat and a couple of video installations that were very strange.  Besquiat’s work was a bit like street art, quite dark and hard to appreciate.  Look him up if you are interested.  There were no photos allowed.  I decided that the building itself is really a piece of artwork and needs to be appreciated that way.  It is not a functional building for displaying art, or even for navigating through.

imageWe have tea and some tapas in the café and we decide we have seen enough of the Guggenheim.image

One of Bilbao residents favourite pieces of art is Puppy by Jeff Koon.  It is a 13 m (43′) high sculpture of a Highland Terrier with a coat of flowers.  It made both of us smile.

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And…I don’t think Inhave mentioned how much people in Spain love dogs.  There are dogs eveywhere, and often they are very large dogs.  These two ladies had seven dogs between them, some of them were off leash.image

We had our picnic lunch on the benches here and then go to the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, which was wonderful.  It was very well organized chronologically and the paintings were also labeled in English, which we really appreciated.  There are so many fantastic Spanish painters I have never even heard of.  We particularly liked the 13th to 15th Century paintings which were larger, more colourful and full of expression than paintings we have seen from this time in other museums.  I took a quick snap of this Mary Cassatt work,  which is one of my favourites.  I was so surprised to walk into a  room and find this painting.image

On our walk back to our car I took this photo to show the mix of very modern sculpture in the foreground, very old buildings, and then the extremely modern tower in the background. Everywhere in Spanish cities and towns we see this interesting mix of styles.  

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Prehistoric Cave Drawings at El Castillo, Las Monedas, and Altamira

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Thursday, October 1

The caves are not all that easy to find.  There are not a lot of signs for some of these main tourist attractions on the roads in the towns or villages once you are off the highways.  We actually made a ‘wrong’ turn that got us close, and then we asked directions from three local women who were sitting on an old stone bench on the side of the road, cracking and eating walnuts, while they visited.  It is an uphill winding road to the caves and we arrive in time for the last tour of the day at 1:40.  That is another thing that is taking some getting used to, the hours that attractions and businesses are open.  More on that later.

We are not allowed any pictures inside the cave and there are only four of us on the tour, so no chance to ‘sneak’ a picture or two…however we are allowed to take a picture before we enter the cave from the waiting area.image

The first cave we enter is El Castillo,  or Castle Cave, named after the mountain where it is located. The cave is incredible in its own right. The following cave pictures are taken from information in the interpretive centre.imageThen there are the cave drawings! The oldest, the negative handprints are 35,000 years old! There are also many drawings of bison, horses, reindeer and abstract symbols, including lots of round red shapes whose meaning is unknown.imageHaving a guide is essential, we never would have seen most of the drawings without her.  Our guide only spoke a little English, but it was enough to explain a bit of what we were seeing and answer basic questions. We decide we need to wait until after lunch and see the Las Monedas Cave which is also open, so we have our picnic lunch in a nearby farmer’s field. We keep looking for bulls as we hear branches cracking but discover it is only the chestnuts falling from the trees. imageLas Monedas has even more spectacular rock formations than El Castillo.  The stalactites and stalagmites are incredible, and form a multitude of differently shaped spires, pillars and other shapes.  There is so much to see that my head is swivelling in all directions, which can be rather dangerous on uneven, slippery wet footing!imageOur guide for this cave, Rebecca is amazing.  Her English is very good and she has an extensive knowledge of the cave but also of archeology and history as well.  We are the only people on this tour and our scheduled 45 minute visit extends to an hour and a quarter.  We are so glad we changed our plans and decided to see this cave as well.  There are only a few charcoal drawings in this cave, near the entrance.  I did some sketching in the caves, difficult without much light and not a lot of time, but it was an awesome feeling to think I was standing making art in the same spot as a prehistoric artist stood some 35,000 years ago!

We do a little exploring of our own after our tour.image

Next stop the famous Altamira Caves.  These caves are no longer open to the public due to the damage caused by thousands of daily visitors in the 70’s, but there is an accurate reproduction called the NeoCave that we can visit and a museum. I sit on the floor looking up and I try to draw, it is pretty hard on my neck. Here is a photo of my efforts.

imageThese are two pictures I took of the NeoCave.  We are amazed at the size, brightness and number of drawings.  The NeoCave is better than not seeing them at all, but I can only imagine what it must feel like to have been able to see the actual drawings in their original setting.image image  Hand drawings from the museum display.image

We are the last people out of the museum at 8:00 and we need to drive home in the dark.  This proves to be a bit of a challenge as we hit road construction, some detours and then we miss a few of the turns so made our own detours!  Thank heavens for the iPad and its maps with GPS.  I think we would have been driving around all night without it!

Pamplona, the El Camino de Santiago, San Sebastian Beach, and Guernica

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We walk four kilometers of the  El Camino de Santiago ( a pilgrimage walk) on Thursday in Pamplona. I thought I would like to do a long walk like this, but after talking to some of the people on the walk I have changed my mind.  Much of the walk is on city streets or along the shoulders of roads, and the shelters are communal rooms with bunk beds very close to one another so lots of snoring and night-time noises.  Not for me, thank you.imageThis is the Bridge of La Magdalena, a medieval bridge that millions of pilgrims have used to cross the River Arga on the way to Pamplona through the ‘Gateway of France’ which still has a working drawbridge.                   image

The drawbridge is now only used once a year on January 5th, when three Wise Men on camels enter the Old City of Pamplona.image

We follow the route of The Running of the Bulls, which takes place during the summer, all the way to the bullring.  It is easy to imagine how crazy, chaotic and dangerous this event is. The streets are very narrow and there is nowhere to hide from the many very angry, very large stampeding bulls!
 imageThere is an eleven meter long sculpture called ‘Monument to the Bull Run’ by a Spanish Sculptor that faces the bullring.  It is quite impressive and gives some idea of what this event might look like.image

We rest for a while in the Plaza Del Castillo, with a view of the colorful buildings of Pamplona before getting something to eat and heading back to our hotel. We take a local bus that takes us almost to the door of our hotel.  Nice, I am tired today.imageWednesday morning we drive to the beach at San Sebastian, which is one of the popular resorts in Northern Spain.  It is not for us.  We prefer the more natural beaches, with fewer apartments and hotels.  It is cloudy when we arrive but it warms up and the sun comes out.  We have been very lucky with the weather, and had our first rain last night along with a very loud thunderstorm.

image  I stick my fingers in the Atlantic Ocean which we have now seen from Florida, South Africa and Spain.imageWe are off to Guernica, a small town that was bombed by Germany in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. It was the world’s first saturation bombing raid and the destruction this bombing caused inspired Pablo Picasso’s famous painting, Guernica.  We first visit Guernica’s Parliament building, which has an enormous modern stained glass ceiling covering what used to be a courtyard.  It depicts the Oak of Guernica. Basque leaders met in democratic assembly under this tree for centuries.  There is a 300 year old petrified oak tree in the garden outside here which is symbolic of the ancient roots of the Basque people.imageWe find the tiled life sized mural of Guernica, the original paining is now in Madrid.imageThere are several large sculptures in the Peace Park adjacent to the Parliament building and the oak tree, including this one by Henry Moore.image  We had our first tapas in Guernica, an easy economical way to sample a variety of local foods.imagePerhaps the nicest part of the day was arriving at our Airbnb apartment in Gama.  Our host Gemma met us nearby and we followed her to the loveliest little apartment. We have stayed at several Airbnb accomodations and this is the nicest one yet.  We decide to extend our stay here to five nights.  It is relaxing to stay put for a while and this is such a nice place to do that.  Here are photos of our home for the next five days.image image image

Castillo de Loarre and San Juan de la Pena

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On Tuesday we visited Castillo de Loarre, a beautifully preserved Romanesque church and fortress that was started in 1071, over 900 years ago!  A film called Kingdom to Heaven was filmed there, I think in 2005. This is our first view of the castle.

image These are the ornate windows in the Queen’s tower.image  We had to watch our footing in this Medieval castle.imageWe were surprised by this para glider overhead, then we saw many more of them as there was a jumping off spot on the mountain just behind castle.image

There was an amazing panoramic view of the valley below us…image and this was our view while we had a picnic lunch!imageAfter lunch we headed to the San Juan de la Pena Monastery.  On the way we pass Aguero, a little village nestled at the base of dramatic eroded stone cliffs.  We would have loved to stop and explore, but there just isn’t time. I thought three months would be so much time but there is so much to see everywhere that we have to pick and choose.

imageThe new monastery has an interpretive center built over the old ruins.  It is the modern building  to the right in the photo below. It is a huge long building with a glass floor to view the excavated ruins below.  I find it rather unnerving walking on a clear glass floor!imageimage image

Then we go below and walk through part of the excavations.  There is also another enormous building with more ruins and figures to walk through.image

We catch a bus to the old Monastery which is sheltered under a bulging rock.  It was founded  in 920 and the Holy Grail is said to have been kept here to protect it from the Muslim invaders.  There is a replica in the chapel.image image image

The cloister has beautifully carved capitals with scenes from the Bible.imageWe have a bit of time before the bus comes back to pick us up (there is no where to park near the Monastery) so I start a sketch.

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On the way home we drive through several long tunnels that cut right through the mountains. This one was over a kilometer long!  image

Alquézar

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We drove to Alquézar on Sunday.  I am still in catch up mode on my blog, trying to work out the best combination of blogging and keeping a journal.  I really want to do both but it does take a bit of time, so I may have to change my approach, we will see.  This is our first view of Alquézar, a  Moorish village, with its 16th Century Collegiate Church.  We are quite impressed.

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We walk up towards the church, which is quite an uphill walk,  but the entrance is closed off, so we can’t go inside.  We continue our walk along the narrow winding streets and find a little cafe where we stop for tea and a bite to eat.

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The view from here is pretty incredible.  The church is on the right and there are massive cliffs on the left.image

imageThe streets are narrow and often go under buildings.  Notice the feet over the road!image

image We see this fixer upper for sale.  I wonder how much it would cost to buy?  and then how much it would cost to fix up?  Quite a lot I think.  We enjoyed our afternoon here but it is soon time to head to Huesca to find a place to stay tonight.  Bob is doing a good job finding hotels but we are both looking forward to getting an apartment again and staying put for a few days.

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Figueres and Salvador Dali

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On Saturday we headed to Figueres to visit the Salvador Dali Museum. We were also interested in visiting his home and studio but we discovered that we should have booked tickets online for that and they were all sold out for today. The Teatre-Museu Dali is located in Figueres’s old Theatre and it is the second most visited museum in Spain after the Prado.  It is a pretty fantastical building.image

Dali built this museum on the site of the burned out Figueres Theatre.  He started working on it in 1960 and didn’t finish until 1974.  It is Dali’s largest work of art. He designed the building and it contains many of his artworks. In the central courtyard Dali’s black Cadillac is located under a fountain, although no water was flowing when we were there.

imageI’ve often seen this painting, Soft Self Portrait with Grilled Bacon, in art books.imageThere is no doubt his work is very different, and sometimes hard for me to appreciate.  This painting is called ‘The Happy Horse’ although it certainly doesn’t look very happy.imageThe Stage has a huge glass dome that throws its shadows over everything below.imageThe museum is packed with people and there are 22 rooms to visit.  The rooms trace Dali’s artistic progress from the earliest to the last years of his life. Honestly, it is a bit overwhelming and after visiting this museum we go to another Dali museum next door that contains jewels designed by Dali.  By this time we are ready for a change so we head to L’Escala which is a small resort on the Mediterranean a part of Spain’s Costa Brava, a 200 km coastline of beaches and resorts.
 imageWe walk along the coast for a while, but the water is quite cold and we are not tempted to get wet. 
 imageThe Empuries are Greco-Roman ruins called that were built between the 7th and 3rd Century B.C.  They are right behind the beach area at L’Escala. They looked interesting but the site closed in half an hour and we didn’t think it would be time to see it all and visit the Museum, so we were content to walk along its fence and see what we could see as we made our way back to our car.imageimage

“Winter is Coming!”

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We arrived in Girona Wednesday evening and learned that The Game of Thrones was filming part of the sixth season here earlier this month.  Bob is convinced that we could have been hired as extras if only we had arrived a bit sooner!  This our first view of the two Cathedrals in Old Town Girona on Thursday. They definitely look as though they could be used as a set in the Game of Thrones.

imageThis is the Girona Cathedral, we counted, 90 steps to get up to the doors, which are absolutely gorgeous, and we watched a young girl run up and down these steps 6 or 7 times in a row!  Much fitter than either of us, that’s for sure.
imageMy favourite spots in all of Girona are the fortress walls that surround the Old Town and the secret garden spots among the ruins behind the Cathedral.image imageWe watched the sunset from the top of some of these old walls.imageI love the roads, they are all made with pebbles, or lovely old brick tiles.  Not a cement or paved road in sight.  Just imagine how long it took to make all these roads and walkways and stairs.image

We walked around the narrow winding streets, peeking into shops and absorbing the atmosphere.  We head back to our hotel about 8:00. We were only a twenty minute walk away.  Here are a couple night shots.image image

Friday we head back to the Old Town for some more exploring. I love all the interesting details everywhere I look, like this door handle.image

We have never seen a bus inside a coffee shop before.
 imageThe streets are very, very narrow, and dark because the sun just doesn’t reach the bottom of them and there are these lovely little passage ways that connect many of the streets.image image  These big stones are old Roman stones from the Third Century!  The walls are such an interesting mix of stones, and bricks and pebbles.  Buildings were torn down and their stones used to build new places, and this happened over and over again.imageWe walked along the base of these city walls trying to find a way on to the top of them,.  We were finally successful and walked along the top of these ancient walls.image

Here is the view from the top.  We walked along the long wall on the far left side of the picture.
 image  Next stop was the Arab baths that dated back to the 11th Century.  There were cold, warm and hot baths, pretty amazing technology for that long ago.  And this pool had a “skylight ” above it!image  The same view as the night picture yesterday.image We head home through this park with perfectly spaced rows of trees after having a nice meal near the river in the above picture. image This is our last view of Old Town Girona.image

Montserrat Monastery

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We arrived at Montserrat Monastery late Monday afternoon.  It took longer than we thought to get our rental car and we soon discovered that the trunk is too small for two suitcases, oops!  We have been told not to leave anything visible in the car or it will likely be stolen. There are no upgrades available so we decide we can manage to go to the Monastery and then we will come back to Barcelona and get a different car.

The monastery is at the top of a long narrow winding road and it is an incredible place.  Within fifteen minutes of checking in we decide that we should stay a second night.image

We wander about and go to Vespers after supper.  The monks sing and then the boys choir sings by themselves at the end of the service.  It was very beautiful.  We have a quiet evening. We are both tired after all the excitement of the FIre Run last night and the first day driving and navigating.imageWe go hiking Tuesday morning.  We take the Sant Joan Funicular up to the start of the trails.  It is quite the experience riding straight up a mountainside, and of course the views are amazing.

imageThe rock formations here remind us a lot of Cappadocia in Turkey, and we managed to get lost on our hike there!  Hopefully we will do better here.  We decide to do the hike to Sant Jeromi, a 7.5 km hike to the highest point of Montserrat.  The rock formations here are absolutely stunning.image imageSoon we are at the base of Gorra Frigia, and we see three mountain climbers, working their way towards the top.  It looks rather scary to us, but then we aren’t mountain climbers.  imageThe picture above is a close up.  They are near the top of this mountain in the picture below.image imageOur son-in-law climbs so these pictures are especially for him.  We are headed for the top of the middle rock in the center of this skyline.  It looks low here but it is actually the highest point, 1236 meters above sea level.imageThe rock formations are fascinating and the rock is conglomerate rock, so it is full of all sorts of pebbles and rocks in a base that almost looks like cement.imageI think we must almost be there after just climbing several hundred steps but we turn the corner and see….more steps, another 112 to be exact!imageAlmost there!
image  Here we are, tired but what an incredible 360′ view!imageWe can see for miles and miles…

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We have our picnic lunch and enjoy the view and even see a birthday party, complete with cake and candles for a 31 year old Spanish man.  We join in when his friends sing him Happy Birthday which kind of surprised him, and he thanked us afterwards.  On the way down we stop to add a few rocks to these Inuksuk like piles of rocks….image  and see this little Nativity Scene that someone set up, high on the mountain.imageI am intrigued with the rocks on the path.  So many people have walked over these paths that some of the rocks have become polished.imageWe see more mountain climbers, this one rappelled down very quickly and disappeared from sight when we glanced away for a second.  His friends were calling out to him.  We wondered if he was OK?
 imageThe sun shone through the clouds, like rays of light from heaven over the Monastery.
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We went back to hear the choir sing one more time.  No pictures are allowed during the services but I quickly snapped this not very good one as they were leaving.  The boys (55 of them) are educated at the  Monastery, and sing six days a week, with one month off during the summer.image

We go back to our room and sit and have tea, looking out the window, just enjoying it all.  We are both quite tired after our 4 1/2 hour hike.

The Mercé Correfoc or “Fire Run”

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The highlight of our day Sunday was the Mercé Correfoc, or Fire Run that started at 8:30 with an explosion of fireworks right on the street between the buildings.  We heard people talking about tying up your hair and covering your head and face with a scarf.  We soon found out why.image

The ‘devils’ start to run down the street, accompanied by groups of very loud drummers, and the fire breathing beasts!  These devils carry sticks which have firworks on them that twirl around, spraying fireworks everywhere!   They actually aim them at the crowd on purpose and run by us, at times just beyond arm’s distance!  
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Now we know why we need to cover up.  I had my sarong with me so we used it to cover our heads when the devils run by.  It is total madness!!  There is no way anyone should be doing this and yet here we are, along with thousands of others, caught up in the excitement of it all.
image  It was hard to get pictures, I took a lot but most of them were too blurry and out of focus. When the devils run too close to us we just covered up, and hoped to not catch fire!  We did see one person start smouldering until someone noticed and put out the fire that was starting on their head covering!imageWe stayed until 10:30 and I reluctantly agreed to leave even though there was no sign of the fun ending.  We needed to get home and finish packing as we leave our little Barcelona apartment tomorrow and head for the Monastery at Montserrat. I am playing catch up on these posts as we have not had internet since Sunday, and it was too late to post anything Sunday night when we finished packing.

Dragons and Beasts!

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This building was a bullring, but bullfighting was banned in Catalonia in 2011 so now it is used for concerts and other events.  We walked by it on the way to a flea market this afternoon.image We found the flea market and it is huge, two stories and  probably hundreds of stalls.  We decide we will need to come back when we return to Barcelona and have more time to spend looking around.imageWe make our way to Parc de La Ciutadella, to check out the Mercé 2015 Festival activities. There are a lot more people here today than a couple of days ago.  I loved the balloons and the people watching.image

There were some antique rides that were very interesting. Notice the toilet seat…imageAnd the lady in white, she was pushing a lever that made the ride move. image

There were some very good dancers on stage, I think from the ballet company, not sure as all the announcements were in Spanish…there were crowds of people everywhere.image

Next stop was Placa Jaume where the Parade of the Fire Breathing Dragons and Beasts was supposed to start. We had to turn around and approach the square from a different street because the one we were on was completely jammed with people. I have never been in such a crowd before, and I didn’t like it at all. We could barely move, but managed to turn around and make our way to the other side of the square. We were very lucky as this was where the dragons and beasts came into the square. There were people eveywhere, even up all the side streets, but we were in a good spot up against the railing so we didn’t feel as squished as earlier. Here are a couple photos of the crowd.imageimageSoon the Dragons and Beasts emerged, with great fanfare and to the accompaniment of very loud very enthusiastic drumming. Each beast had it’s own group of supporters, who were making a great deal of noise.

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The pictures are a bit blurry because it was so dark and these dragons and beasts moved quite quickly and it was hard to find a spot that didn’t have a camera held up in it! The energy generated in this square was amazing, and very exciting. I loved it. After all the dragons and beasts left, we headed back to Barceloneta Beach to watch the fireworks by Buenos Aires. The show was a bit shorter than last night’s but it was much more spectacular. There were even Happy Face fireworks, but I never managed to get a picture of them. There were also a lot more people out and about watching the fireworks and on all the streets. We head back to our apartment, get home about 11:00, we are both tired as we did a lot of walking today,  but it was a good day.

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