The "Art" Museum

We awoke to sun and a desire to get out of the house. We went down to the bus station and jumped on the bus to Bilbao. Jolene and I used to live in a suburb of Bilbao and we had been wanting to check out the old 'hood for quite some time. Our first stop was the Guggenheim art museum. The museum opened about a month after we moved here back in '97 and at the time we thought it was an amazing building but questioned the logic of placing it on a polluted river in a run-down industrial city that most people hadn't heard of. We were shocked when we laid our eyes upon it after 13 years away. There has been a complete transformation of the area, with locals and tourists enjoying the bike and walking paths and we even saw kayakers in the previously dreadful river. The surrounding buildings look clean and shining and there are open, grassy parks all over. The building is still the centerpiece of it all and some new (to us) sculptures have really added to its appeal. I know what your Renoites are thinking--yeah, but do they have a train trench? Sorry but I couldn't resist throwing that one in for the home crowd.




The puppy (poopy as the Spaniards say it) was supposed to be temporary but the locals loved it and demanded that it stay.




Jolene and I have had the same ongoing debate over what constitutes modern "art" since our first visit to the museum. Let's just say that in my eyes, you pay 12 Euro to see the building and if you run across something that you think is art inside consider it a bonus.





Noelle was thrilled to find what she claimed was one of the best parks in Europe.




After the museum we took the metro out to our old neighborhood of Algorta. The kids weren't that impressed, but neither were we on our first visit. It's the kind of place that you have to live in to appreciate. There have been a few changes, but we were glad to see some of the old shops that we used to visit were still in business. We had a snack at one of our favorite bars and it was still good. It was getting late and we didn't want a repeat of the Paris train fiasco, so we headed back a little early to catch the bus to San Sebastian. We finished the night off with a great, inexpensive meal in the old part of town.