Last evening I went down to the lobby and asked the person at the desk (they have all been very helpful!) about bus transportation into Bilbao. My search on Google Maps had indicated a convoluted, time-consuming route and I thought there must be something better. There was. I should go to the bus stop across from the church behind the hotel and that bus would take me directly to Plaza Moyúa, in the centre of Bilbao and just a few blocks from the Guggenheim. To come back, I would get the same R5 bus from that point. I asked about the fare. Just 2 or 3 €, she wasn't quite sure. When was the first bus? Tomorrow is a Basque holiday so the first bus would be at 7 and then every 2 hours.
I woke early and was at the bus stop by quarter to 7 since it seemed weird that the bus would be on the hour and I didn't want to miss it and wait two hours. There isn't a whole lot to see and do in Loiu, especially early in the morning in Spain. The schedule posted at the bus stop did say the bus should be at 7, but it was 10 minutes late. I enquired about the fare and the driver said 1.45€. I gave him 2 and he gave me change!! Later I saw the sticker that said drivers could not accept bills larger than 20€. At home, it's exact change only. I noticed that most people had passes with RFID chips.
It was less than 30 minutes into Bilbao. So much for Google Maps here! I alighted with the intention of walking to the Guggenheim to see the exterior without crowds and then find breakfast.
After coffee and a pastry, I continued walking. I had purchased a ticket for the Guggenheim for 12:30 since you had to put in a time and I wasn't sure if I'd catch the 7 a.m. bus and I thought I'd rather wander around in the morning and spend the afternoon in an air-conditioned museum. What I didn't factor in was the Basque holiday. Everything except a couple of bakery-cafés was closed! The Basques take their holidays seriously!
Palacio Chávarri, a beautiful building facing Plaza Moyúa
The museum entrance. Even the sign announcing the current exhibitions is curved. There were banners publicizing the exhibitions all over the city. The museum must have a large budget!
The red structure and the unfinished-looking tower by the bridge are parts of the building, intended to bring it and the existing highway bridge together architecturally.
"Maman" by Louise Bourgeois is also part of the permanent collection. The same Louise Bourgeois whose "Structures of Existence: The Cells" is one of the current exhibits. I'm not particularly afraid of spiders, but I don't like them and I certainly wouldn't characterize my mother this way (unlike the artist).
I like this photo because of the reflection (and the spider is cut off to the left). The silver balls tower is also part of the collection, "Tall Tree & the Eye" by Anish Kapoor.
Another pedestrian bridge, upstream of the museum and highway bridge. I liked the design of this one. Look carefully. The main spanning support is a straight line.
Riverside buildings, Bilbao. I wonder how many buildings like this came down to build the Guggenheim. I doubt it was vacant land. Also notice all the yellow banners on windows and balconies.
No rain. This is a street-washer. I saw it in action but was too slow with my camera. Here it is being refilled with water.I noticed that after it went by I could smell some sort of cleaning agent and wondered how environmentally-friendly it was. The clean streets are nice through, and maybe this is why all the streets in the old part of San Sebastian were wet that morning I left.
Having run out of things to do (I'd been walking around Bilbao since before 8:00), I went to the Guggenheim to see if I could enter early. No problem. I took took the audio tour gizmo and listened to the information about the building, which I found very interesting. Moving on to the exhibits housed in this beautiful building, I learned that I just don't get modern art, to the point I was tempted to put that word art in quotes.
I went first to see the School of Paris exhibition and that was interesting. I have to admit I liked the earlier works best and the more abstract, the less I could relate to them. I then moved on to the permanent collections. Any meaning behind "The Matter of Time" by Richard Serra eluded me altogether. Most of the paintings and sculptures I found similarly uninspiring. "Untitled" by Mark Rothko reminded me of "Voice of Fire" and the uproar caused by its purchase by the National Gallery of Canada. Maybe they could sell it to the Guggenheim? And maybe the experts at the Guggenheim will know which is the top?
I moved on to Andy Warhol's "Shadows" and thought, "really?" Then there were "The Cells" by Louise Bourgeois. I was baffled as to what she was getting at. In a video of an interview with her by an American journalist, she said that if her work doesn't lead to an emotion in the viewer, she has failed. Unless bafflement counts as an emotion, she definitely failed with me.
Andy Warhol's "Shadows" or about three-quarters of it. Photography was allowed and even encouraged in this gallery (but no flash).
During all this I left the museum for a couple of hours to get some lunch. Quite a few restaurants were open, serving their Sunday lunch menus, but still no shops of any kind. With nothing else to do, I saw almost everything in the Guggenheim.
When I was done, it was after 4 and the bus driver had told me the bus back to Loiu would be leaving from the same place near Plaza Moyùa, on the even hours. I decided to take the metro out to Portugalete to see the Vizcaya Bridge. I'd been hesitant to do this because I thought it would take an hour each way (Google Maps again) but it was much quicker, less than 30 minutes. And the bridge was really interesting to me.
At first I wondered why there was a "sightseeing" ticket for 7€ while a regular crossing was only 0.40. Then I discovered that the sightseeing ticket allowed you to take an elevator to the top and walk across the upper span on a footpath added to the structure in 1999. This is very well done, with information panels in Spanish and English. This was the best part of my day!
The current gondola, fourth or fifth in the bridge's history, was inaugurated in 1998. The bridge was first opened in 1893 and gondolas have changed as the type of traffic changed. At first, the enclosed areas on the sides were "first class" and cost twice as much; now they are for pedestrians and cars go in the open central part.
I got back to Bilbao in time to get the 8 p.m. bus back to Loiu. Sadly, the holiday meant that the hotel restaurant was closed and so were the other places to eat in the neighbourhood. Room service again! Luckily I'd had a big lunch so fruit salad and yogurt sufficed.
I liked this statue in a park near my hotel in Loiu. Art I can relate to!
