Palacio De Yohn

We thought about skipping the Basque city of Bilbao altogether to save a day for somewhere else, but boy are we glad we didn't. It's famous for 2 things mostly: The wonderful Gehry designed Guggenheim museum and pintxhos (PEEN shows), the Basque tapas. Pintxos have a long toothpick skewer holding things together and they're not free, like some tapas elsewhere in Spain. But, they are amazing snacks that make for a fun dinner when you go pintxo crawling. For about 2 Euros each, you get some sort of a protein (dried meat, seafood, egg) mixed with something else like a pepper, olive, or whatever creative thing the chef can think of. Usually it's on a slice of bread, but not always. They're amazing and a great value. And they're even better when paired with a vermut or local wine.

The Basques are a unique culture and language in northern Spain and SW France. They all speak Spanish though, but now we're seeing local signage with all the X's that are in Euaskara, the Basque language. It's a "Sh" sound so when people are talking to me in Euaskara, it sounds like they're shushing me. Maybe they are.

We only booked one night, so we hit it right away. There's a convenient tram at the Intermodal station (bus and train) that follows the river past the Guggenheim and to the Casco Viejo (old town) and beyond. We got a room right on the main pedestrian street in the Casco and that was fun. There were tourists, but still it was mostly locals out and about at all hours doing their shopping and pintxo crawling.

Our first stop was the Ribeira Mercado, the old seafood market that had a great renovation about 10 years ago. It's still a working market, but there's a nice food court on top and even a cooking school inside. We grabbed some vermut's and pintxos and even found a gluten free bakery. It's fun to watch the locals shop. Four seafood places might not have people in line and then there's one guy with 20 people waiting. We saw the same thing with a vendor selling only fowl.

It rained off and on but it was drizzly and not too cold. We walked along the Nervion river down towards the Guggenheim museum. I'm not a huge modern art fan, and was going mostly for the museum building itself. It's pretty cool, both inside and out. Near the front door is a huge statue of a dog by Jeff Koons, called "Puppy." It's latticework, so they plant all sorts of plants and flowers on it year-round. What was supposed to be a temporary exhibit became beloved by the locals. Bilbao purchased it and it's become one of the symbols of the city.

Like I thought, the building was the best part of the Guggenheim. There was a whole floor of Picasso statues, but I'm not that into him. And there were some other intersting pieces, but just looking up was better.

Then it was back to the Casco for more tapas. We started to walk through the newer town to get there, but it was mostly drab apartment buildings. This area used to be the industrial heartland of Spain, with the iron industry leading the way. I guess 50 years ago, Bilbao was pretty gritty and polluted. Now, it's been reborn and it's quite nice. We chose instead to walk back on the other side of the river and even took the Calatrava designed pedestrian bridge back over the river.

From then on it was all pintxos all the time. Prices were right and you had your pick of at least 10-20 pintxos per bar and dozens and dozens of pintxos bars spread throughout the Casco. It's almost all pedestrianized, so that was fun. We found a place that had a Gin and Tonic 2 for 1 special and I opted for it. But when I was asked "what gin?" I said "el especial" which I thought was suggesting whatever was offered for the special. The bartender and 2 Basque women next to me said "Oh yeah, you want this one!" The bartender grabbed a bottle of Nordes Gin, a Galician brand. The women next to me nodded in approval and one gave me a thumbs up. I thought "Oh boy, here we go" but went with it. It's nice trying the local stuff. We paid just a bit more, but it was some of the best gin I've had. After our first sip, Deanne said "flowery!" at the same time I said "floral!" Delicious. I wonder if I can find it back home?

Some unknown hours later we made it back to our room as the younguns' kept it going all night. In the morning, we walked around a bit more just soaking up the sights. We stored our bags and by noon, it was pintxo time again. We ordered some amazing ones at a place near the Plaza Nueva that were great, including the best Spanish Tortilla I've ever had. It's basically scrambled eggs on potatoes, but this was also smothered with ham and some delicious Basque cheese This was not your run of the mill greasy spoon omelette.

At another place nearby, we grabbed vermuts and the waiter brought us a free pintxo that looked like a litte flower. I had to ask if it was edible and the lady next to us laughed. Apparently, the specialty there was this flower-like pintxo that is shaved cheese in an edible cone, with quince jam inside. Behind us was a huge TV with a repeating video showing how they made it :) It was so fun, we ordered a wine after and Deanne was like "we're gonna miss the bus." It was close, but 45 minutes later, we ran across the Intermodal station with just minutes to spare and caught our bus to San Sebastian, the other great Basque City of Spain.

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