Bilboa

Just when I start getting the hang of speaking Spanish, I head onto Bilboa in northern Spain and soon realise that I will be in the Basque country (Euskadi in the native language) and that they are self proclaimed to be proudly a very different culture to the rest of Espana.

This is the 50th anniversary year of ETA, a Basque separatist movement, which has marked the event by staging an explosion about a week or so ago in Mallorca that killed 2 policeman. Despite regional autonomy, the separatist movement are still seeking to sever ties with the national government in Madrid. So I am a little cautious at the moment, but hopefully nothing will happen during the rest of my time here.

There are three languages in the North - Spanish, Euskera and a small amount English, and there seems to be a lot of X´s and K´s in Euskera so I´m not even going to attempt to pronounce it, seeing as Spanish already has interesting versions on the letters, V, H and G!

I had caught the 8am train from Madrid´s Chamartin Estation de Tren and the weather seemed to turn considerably cooler the further north I travelled. Undulating plains and fields of tall yellow sunflowers eventually gave way to sloping hills and pretty town dappled valleys.

Pulling into Bilboa´s main station at around 1pm I was greeted by a massive stained glass upper wall pouring soft light into the mildly bustling space. Beautiful.

I´ve upgraded for my last two hotels in Spain and I am enjoying 4 star accommodation here and in Barcelona (book early enough in advance and you can get some pretty bargains!), so I´m at the rather stylish and comfortable Barcelo Avenida about 1.5km from the Guggenheim.

I actually took a walk after lunch to gauge whether I could hoof my way there tomorrow but while I got within sight of the amazing structure (it´s definitely gasp-worthy); with the hilly inclines I suspect its actually a lot further to walk to then just distance through line of sight. But I´m looking forward to exploring it tomorrow!

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The number 48 bus just outside my hotel took me practically to the entrance of the Guggenheim and I was again tickled by Frank Gehry´s strangely fish/ boat-like silvery creation, it´s titanium scales reflecting a soft sheen in the overcast Bilboa morning.

Unfortunately there is quite a lot of construction close to the front of the building and I couldn´t get a clear shot of the whole structure and it´s whimsical pet...yes, there seems to be a gigantic flower dog sitting next to the fish. (Don´t worry, I do have photos! :)

I breezed easily through the entrance and thought I had arrived late enough to have avoided the queues, but it turns out that I had just been lucky and early myself - half an hour after I picked up my audio guide (which is included in the ticket price - cool), the shallow stairs leading down to the entrance was packed with people who had obviously opted for a late breakfast.

Sigh... again no pictures or video were allowed inside (though I managed to ignorantly sneak a couple of both before being reminded of the fact).
Y´know, you just can´t tell here...the attendants had no problems with photos at Madrid´s Reina Sofia just as long as the flash wasn´t used, but at the Prado and Thyssen it was definitely nixed.

I really wish I could have taken at least a few pictures inside the galleries, even if it was just for Jess and Scott; there was a retrospective of Chinese born, now New York based artist Cai Guo-Qiang and some of his installations were amazing. (Sorry if I have used this word far too often in this blog!)

His signature pieces involved gunpowder on paper, the final record in an evolving work which usually initially begins with fireworks and explosions in the real world space (he videos these and then recreates them on large panels). There were massive canvases displayed scatter shot with soot and burns to signify his ideas.

He also likes to represent concepts three dimensionally and had an unbelievable work involving 99 wolves running, jumping, flying and hitting head on into a clear glass panel only to pick themselves up and head to the beginning to do it all again. You could walk amongst the wolves, under the ones suspended full flight and also view from the other side of the panel the animals hitting the wall.

There was a delicate porcelain peony in full bloom unfolding from it´s tile...shot and coloured with gunpowder residue - beauty with violence; a flotsam wreck of distressed wood from an original boat beached on smashed porcelain plates and holding more broken pieces and the revered figurines of Chinese goddess of mercy, Guan Yin; and a massive room depicting in life-like but crumbling clay the famed Communist images of the Peasant Revolt, the marble eyes of the statues unnervingly animated though their bodies were frozen and turning to dust. Exceptional.

These are the kinds of art installations which excite me, which make me eager to tell my friends about, to happily chorus and eagerly question.

So now it´s onto my last Spanish site before heading home - Barcelona!