Once know as the industrial heart of northern Spain, Bilbao continues to be an industrial city. Today, however, Bilbao is best known as the home of the Museo Guggenheim de Arte Contemporaneo. We agree with the Lonely Planet’s description of the Guggenheim as a “tourist gold mine”. However, the architecture of the building is fantastic to see. It was designed to be reminiscent of fish and boats, both of which figure prominently in Bilbao’s history. It is quite impressive and is definitely a must-see if you are anywhere in the area. There is a rather whimsical object d’art on the front side of the museum that will definitely catch your eye even if the museum doesn’t. It is a huge “puppy” planted with hundreds of blooming plants. Our first impression was that it was either the Gingham Dog or the Calico Cat, but it appears to be more of a Calico Puppy.

We did not spend a lot of time in Bilbao and did not really see anything there other than the museum that would give anyone a reason to stop. The entire area is heavily populated and runs along the mountainous north coast for miles. This area is billed as the Costa Vasca (Basque Coast). Again the lonely planet put it best when they wrote, “A combination of rainy weather, chilly seas and terrorism tends to put some people off”. Not to mention high prices. We found the prices in this area of Spain to be at least one third more than those found in other parts of the country.

We came to Bilbao from Pamplona and the highway through the mountains down to the sea is quite spectacular, as is the rugged coast itself. There are small towns that dot the coast one either side of Bilbao that we would recommend for lodging rather than Bilbao itself. We found a very nice hotel in Castro-Urdiales (about 18 km west of Bilbao) that is right on the beach (picture, right - the hotel is the brown building). This is a small town and the beach is probably three quarters of a mile in length. Our room has a large balcony and a sitting area in addition to the sleeping area and bath. All this for fewer than U.S.$50.00 per night. We are the only extraneros (foreigners) in town - everyone else is Spanish.

The town is built around a small port (left) and fishing seems to be the main industry, though the majority of the population works in the service sector, supporting all the weekend and summertime visitors from neighboring areas.  On the hill is the gothic church dating from the 13th century (the tallest building in the picture, near the center). Just right of the church is the fortress built on the point to protect the small town in medieval times.

 In the morning we watched as the fishing boats arrived in town with their morning catch, with the local housewives waiting to sort through for the best. As we walked around the back of the church where the ocean hits the rocky cliffs. Here, there were literally thousand of small fish swimming near the surface along a protecting cliff face. We were not sure why the volume of fish were here, perhaps just for protection, but it was truly amazing to see - we have never seen such a concentration of fish outside of a fishery. The picture at right attempts to capture sight - each of those silvery flecks is a fish, and the camera only caught the surface layer.

In the evenings, as is usual in Spain, everyone was out for a stroll. The bands were playing in the parks, the kids were playing games in the squares, and proud parents pushed their toddlers and infants in prams, complete with frilly comforters. The babies are dressed in their best outfits, all color-coordinated and carefully ironed. This is something we haven’t seen in the US since we were kids ourselves. The women were mostly in dresses, though the teens tended more toward slacks or jeans. Men were generally in slacks and sport-shirts. It was almost like being in a different era, though we find it the norm in Spain.

In the town of Castro-Uriales, there are probably thousands of apartments owned by visitors as their summer getaway. Luckily, most of the newer buildings are reasonable in height, have some character to their architecture, and seem to be quality-built. So although there is a tremendous number of apartments, the area does not seem overgrown with concrete monstrosities. We were there in late June, which is still considered low-season, so it was very pleasant. From the hotel prices, it appears that mid-July through August is the height of the season and during that time we expect that it would be a bit less calm than now. Although it was raining when we arrived, it dried up later in the evening. The next morning broke to cloudiness and some drizzle but by midday the skies were blue, the people were on the beach and a nice sea-breeze kept everyone cool.

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