Bilbao, Spain

August 13-14th, 2012

Bilbao, Spain

Leaving France with nice trains and a language that we could get by with, and decent hotels, we were a little bit skeptical about Spain and what to expect.  No one had really given us any advice about Spain before coming on this trip or any highlights, but we thought that we would make our way through Spain to get to Portugal.  Our first stop in Spain is Bilbao, which was basically an architectural stop because Frank Gehry (a Canadian architect) designed the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum.  

Steven making good use of his train time!

It was a long train ride to Bilbao, as the railway did not go directly there.  Luckily, we met some really great people on the train to pass the time! We met a couple from Miami, Florida, who were originally from Cuba. As well as this couple from Norway, who we were able to talk to, and touched on riveting topics such as the Norwegian economy and Norwegian residential construction. We learned that Norway actually has a very similar building science to Canada, with wood frame houses.  Although Norway is not in our plans for this trip, this couple definitely made us interested in visiting and potentially making connections for work opportunities there!  

Before we arrived in Spain, for some reason we both pictured sketchy trains with run down cities, and an evidently poor economy with a culture very similar to Mexico...boy were we WRONG!! The people are fair skinned and the population has less multicultralism than has been prevalent in every other city we've visited. The trains and stations are brand new and bi-lingual.  The hotels have been more affordable with better quality overall, and still the wine is cheap! The cities are clean, well developed with parks, shops and residential. The Spanish they speak is very clean, it has such a different sound to it, it's unlike what we're accustomed to. 

Northern Spain has an extremely rocky landscape

Welcome to Bilbao, Spain...such a gorgeous stain glass piece when you enter!

We keep seeing buildings with coloured glazing, so we thought we would document it!

Heading to the Guggenheim!

The Guggenheim Museum

The art may be inside the building, but it might be said that the building is the Art!

The Entrances

Spider Sculpture 

Eek...Jenna knows its fake, but still creeeepy!

Massive flowered bear cub out front.

Different angles really shows you how much is going on with the structure of the building

A structure much less scary than the spider! Look at me I'm swinging : )

A massive Pollo lunch!  2 beers, 1 litre of water, and enough to feed 4 people all for 31 euros!

Some local vegetation that we came across

Bilbao...a short stopover, but a good introduction to Spain...we think it is obvious which building was our Architectural Highlight in Bilbao!!  Next stop, Madrid!