Hotel Ercilla Lopez De Haro Bilbao

... time to walk around Bilbao.

Wow! Bilbao is fantastic! It reminds me of Bogota, only cooler. It is surrounded by beautiful hills (unless you live in Texas, then they’re mountains!). You can almost smell the sea. We had a short nap after we checked in then got up and had lunch (we showed up at a bout 2:30 and the guy told us we were just a bit early for lunch, but he served us). Sure enough ...

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 ...

... The weather has now improved, today was warm and sunny and this a great way to walk off the food ! You see many other aspects of the redevelopment of Bilbao (the Ria 2000 project) including attractive bridges, and Euskalduna Palace cultural centre all redeveloped from the docks. The Maritime museum itself is worth a visit, I particularly liked "Blues" the temporary exhibition of underwater photography.

... down by 1:30pm), helped us find camping stove fuel and materials for making our bikes bus-ready, and then sent us on our way to the Guggenheim.

After much needed coffee and ice cream to counter the sleep-inducing combination of tasty tapas, beer, wine and hard cider, we tackled the Guggenheim. Richard Serra, Cai Guo-Qiang, and some modern art from the Guggenheim permanent collection. All stupendous, thought-provoking ...

... 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.

... I realize that as happy as I am with the food here, my bro-in-law Ron would HATE IT. All Spanish drinks and food dishes are very ripe with vinegar (a taste Ron hates). So, note to you Ron, pack your own food if you are ever out this way! A funny little interaction with Ella during our lunch. The place was full of nice artwork on the walls. Like some of the beaches here, the artwork has a fair amount of bare breasts ... which fascinates my little girl to no end. She ...

... about half an inch of sugar at the bottom of the glass....too sweet, even for me! We headed back to Bilbao when the storm clouds were ready to burst, and I couldn´t help it - I fell asleep for part of the drive. Aren´t I BAD?! Tomorrow we say goodbye to Bilbao and hit the road, following the northern coast to a place called Santillana Del Mar. I´m not sure how many internet cafes we´ll find, but I´ll do my best to update you as I can....Love to you all, Linda & Jim

... to be in a place with so much history. They had been around since the Roman conquest, the take over by the Visigoths and the Spanish Inquisition. It was really remarkable. Being in these ancient places makes me think about how little history the United States has in comparison. Spain has thousands of years of history, while we have 400 years. Anyway, after our excursion we went to Pizza Hut to meet up with the guys. Javier, Pablo and Carlos were supposed to be there ...