Conde Duque Bilbao

... distance I can make out the Pyrenees. And just on the other side, we’ll be coming in to Bilbao. Not sure if preparing myself mentally and moving my watch to Spain-time did it, but I’m feeling quite refreshed right now despite the fact that I didn’t sleep much on the flight over the ocean. The cabin is being prepped for landing so I’m quitting now, but I’ll pick up once we ...

We drove from Madrid, got a bit lost trying to find Lurdea. We thought it is a name of a village but it is not it is just the name of the Hotel/Casa Rural.

The place is amazing. Located in the hills above Bermeo, with magnificent view of the ocean. It is clean (like really clean) and has the air of a relaxing boutique hotel.

... for thousands of year the history of the City and Spain As a whole.

Guggenheim Museum
Museo de Bellas Artes
Basque Museum
La Ría Maritime Museum
Museo Taurino (Bullfighting Museum)
Museo Diocesano de Arte Sacro (Museum of Sacred Art)
Museo de Reproducciones Artísticas (Museum of Artistic Reproductions ...

... Sometimes on a holiday like this you become a bit jaded with fine dining, but today I was also tempted by the fact that several of the courses on the tasting menu were vegetarian, and I also felt a bit overloaded in recent days with meat and fish. Aubergine roasted in liquorice was a pleasant new experience, but all in all not a patch on the Andra Mari which I tried on Monday, and not as good value. If you ...

... the Casco Viejo - the old town. Very attractive - can't wait to visit tonight for a "txikiteo" (traditional bar crawl sampling the local food speciality - pintxos - tiny tapas on sticks). I enjoyed a coffee this morning in ...

... nice little tapas bar to try the famous pintxos (PIN-chos, tapas) and sidra (SEE-dra) which is very yummy, tastes like bitter apple juice with a hell of a kick. Next day we went to the Guggenheim museum, the main attraction of the city. It was very interesting, lots of modern art and installations and the building itself is massive and modern. We ended up staying for three nights, just enough time to see Bilbao and have a daytrip to San Sebastian.

... somewhere you want to stay. True is relatively near the tube into the city (a cab ride of about £5) but it's not worth it. We left and didn't pay for the night we stayed there (I'm not sorry).

We also came to the conclusion that we needed a car so hired one to drive us to San Seb. Spent a another day in Bilbao seeing the obvious Guggenheim.

... hanging around them--looks very gross! As far as do´s--where we live, jeans are beyond popular. People are wearing jeans as "dress-clothes" to everything. This is just a recent fashion, and it was not that common when we were in Madrid a few weeks ago. As far as an update, the past few days I really haven´t done anything exciting. I have found some awesome recipes by just trying to cook random things from the grocery ...

Well after deciding to stay an extra night in San Sebastian for all of the festivities, Bilbao was the last stop of my 6 city tour of the north. It´s one of Spain´s biggest cities and knowing that I only had one day to explore it and make sure I saw Bilbao´s Guggenheim Museum that I have ...