Wednesday afternoon we spent exploring Orio town which whilst small has some lovely old buildings and appears quite affluent. We also found the railway station (useful for our planned visit to San Sebastian later in the week) and had our first Spanish coffee of the holiday which was lovely.
As the forecast for Thursday was OK if not very sunny we decided to drive to Bilbao and spend the day there. It’s about an hour’s drive from Orio, and I’d booked us on a walking tour around the old part of town at noon, so we thought we’d get an early start and visit the Tourist Information beforehand. We set off, and after 10 minutes the SatNav (remember we also call her Satan!) decided she’d taken us the wrong way on the motorway, so 20 minutes after we set off we could see Stavvers from the flyover adjacent to the campsite!
Still, we were in Bilbao in plenty of time, parked in an underground car park near the railway station and set off, using Google Maps to find the Tourist Information office. After collecting a map we stopped for coffee and Portuguese custard tarts and then headed to the tour rendezvous with our guide David. He’s not from Bilbao but Granada, but was nevertheless very knowledgeable and we had a fascinating two hours whilst he showed us round the very small old town which consisted of just seven streets at right angles to the river.
Bilbao has a reputation of giving everything simple names (we were in the New Square when he told us this) and the last two streets of the seven are known as Lower Street and, yes you guessed it, Lower, Lower Street!
He also told us that Bilbao, a relatively modern city which really only came to prominence in the industrial revolution as a result of wool and iron ore, attracted quite a few British miners. They in turn introduced football and the Spanish love of the game was born. A hangover from that time is the expression ‘All Iron’ which was used by the mine owners to tell miners when the lode was pure. This translated into Spanish as ‘Al-e-ron’ which is what Athletic Bilbao supporters chant to urge their team on. Almost as good as Blue Moon!
Another lovely story was the connection between the Bank of Bilbao and cod! The Spanish (and Portuguese) are very fond of cod, particularly when it’s salted, and in former times a wealthy merchant from Bilbao placed an order with a fisherman to buy 100 o 160 (o is the Spanish for or) pieces of cod. Unfortunately the fisherman misread the order and delivered 1,000,160 pieces of cod – which the merchant paid for, the fisherman banked the money, and this helped fund the Bank of Bilbao!
Having completed the tour and said goodbye to David, we stopped for a tapas and alcohol free beer lunch at the Plaza Nuevo. Things have moved on in the alcohol free department since we were last here in 2017 as this was San Miguel on draft and superb. We still have a lot of catching up to do in this department!
Duly fortified, we followed the river on foot until we reached the Guggenheim Museum. The is an amazing range of buildings built in the 1990’s and is breathtaking, and even incorporates an old bridge amongst its structure. It’s one of three Guggenheim establishments along with New York and Venice, and is truly stunning. By the time we reached it, it had started to drizzle so we decided to go in and have a look around.
Whilst the outdoor ‘art’ such as the giant spider, a column of stainless steel balls and the hourly ‘fog’ pumped alongside the riverbank were fabulous, the internal exhibitions didn’t match up to the building for us I’m afraid. I was particularly bemused by a 6 foot by 8 foot painting by the American Robert Motherwell. It was entirely matt black except for the bottom left had corner which hadn’t been painted at all. to me it looked like a teenager had painted the wall of his bedroom with a black match pot, but had run out before he could finish it! The Emperor’s new clothes springs to mind!
We also found some of the exhibitions very disturbing, especially the main display by Jenny Holzer – I’m sure it is intended to make you think, but it was quite harrowing. Once we’d had enough of admiring expensive/overpriced ‘art’ we decided to head back to the car. However, we’d lost our sense of where we’d parked, so once again I opened Google Maps to give us a helping hand. To my surprise the first thing that came up was ‘where you parked the car’ and sure enough it took us straight there! Now, I know you kids will think that’s just normal, but for us oldies who have spent many an unsatisfactory hour vainly looking for where we’d parked, this is a real revelation!
The journey back was fine and without incident, other than it was raining pretty hard by now, and the rain continued as we arrived back at the site.
I asked at reception if they could phone the local caravan dealer to see if we could get a replacement pump, and they were really helpful, not only phoning but sending a photo of what we wanted. The dealer said they didn’t have one in stock but would check with their suppliers to see if one could be sourced – call back tomorrow!
I’d also promised to barbecue a couple of pork steaks so set to under the canopy whilst Karol prepared salad. All of a sudden water started to pour through the roof light into the caravan lounge. We quickly placed a couple of washing up bowls down to catch the water and then attempted to look for the cause. There’s been a puddle on the caravan roof for a while now (apparently quite normal) and on closer inspection it looked like one of the catches on the roof light hadn’t been fastened properly, so hopefully this was a one off and wouldn’t reoccur. It still took us 45 minutes to resolve and mop up though, and we were both quite despondent. What else can go wrong? No water in the right places and too much in the wrong! And it’s still raining……..
The BBQ was good though, and we both went to bed fed and watered. The forecast for Friday looks better so fingers crossed!