Exploring the Basque Country!

We were fortunate enough to be able to stay with Jackie while visiting Spain.  She moved into an apartment in Bilbao while we were there.  We loved having a space to make meals, including a homemade Paella recipe (from Sergio's mom).  We were appreciative to be able to invaded her and her roommates space for a few days!  While we were staying with her we explored Old Bilbao, the hanging bridge, the Guggenheim Museum and San Sebastian.  We stayed with Jackie for 4 days before traveling up to Paris.

We started with Old Bilbao, walking on the beach toward the hanging bridge. 

 The hanging bridge transports people, cars, motorcycles across the river.

 The Guggenheim Museum was an excellent art museum that housed some of the most wild art.

The first four photos are of the outside.  In the audio tour it tells you about the architect who designed the building and how there aren't any straight lines within the building.  Part of the art was the building itself.

 

The outside.

 

The inside.

 

 

This exhibit, although I didn't know it until I was back at Jackie's goes off every hour, shooting another clay 'shell' at the wall creating quite the mess!

 

This exhibit hall was fun to explore.  All the of the metal sculptures were wide enough to walk through.  The smaller model is below so you could see the entire exhibit at once.

 

 Chicago's Bean was in the museum also!  

The artist responsible for the "Cloud Gate" had quite a few photos of his pieces displayed.

 Some other crazy art!

 

 The bridge next to the museum was an art piece itself!

The last day we were with Jackie we traveled to San Sebastian - we traveled nearly 3 hours by bus for 7 euros!  The night before we went out in Bilbao, the girls didn't arrive home until 5 in the morning.  So we didn't make it to San Sebastian until about 4.
San Sebastian is a quaint coastal town with a great bay, its beach would be fabulous to visit in the summer.

 Going out!

 San Sebastian's Catholic Church (the back)

  (the front)

 the streets of old town, we explored these to find a great tapas place

 The tapas place with ham hanging from the ceiling!

Aubrey was in heaven eating eel!

 oh, and WINE!

 We walked around in a large circle to the furthermost point of the east part of the bay.

 Art is everywhere!

 The copper tiles sparkled in the sunlight.

 The beach I'd like to return to one day.

Then we traveled to Paris in our bunks!!