Inside the Guggenheim

Apparently there are no city buses to get us to the museum, so after our breakfast (more on that in a minute) we trekked down to the waterfront (about a mile each way) to the Guggenheim. Inside it is a three story building. You stand in line to pay your admission on a set of steps going downhill. Once inside we had the pleasant surprise of reduced admission. Instead of the normal 12.50 Euros (think $20) they had reduced the admission to 7.50 Euros because one of the exhibits was closed and we could not visit the middle floor. It felt like our cruise where we got rebates for missed stops.

Included in the admission was a personal sound device that played recordings when you programed the number of the art piece you were standing in front of. We were particularly fascinated with the architecture of the building and spent about half our visit time listening to how the building was conceived and built. The art itself was modern, some of which was great and other parts were strange. It was the only art museum we visited in ten months on the road (heathens that we are) so now we can say we visited at least one of the famous art museums of Europe.

Breakfast was included in our 60 Euro hotel room. For those you you who have been to Europe recently will know, 60 Euros is a cheap rate for a hotel, particularly on a holiday weekend in a tourist city like Bilbao. Expectations for breakfast were low, and largely met. Croissants seem to be the staple breakfast food of Spain and Italy, along with a cup of very strong coffee. In Italy the croissants are called cornettos and they are breadier in the center than the flaky ones you associate with France. In Spain they are flaky on the inside, but they coat the outside with a sugar glaze so it is a cross between a croissant and a glazed donut. Because the glaze is sticky the Spanish eat them with a knife and fork on a plate or napkin. Typically the included breakfasts have breads, yogurt (I love the natural unsweetened yogurt they serve here) and jam. At the better places you also get cheeses and ham, but not here. That's okay as we are getting kind of burned out on that stuff anyway.


Based on our last trip to Spain we expected to encounter waiters, hotel clerks and salesclerks that spoke English, but it is not necessarily so in the central parts of Spain. In the Catalonia province where Barcelona resides the people speak Catalan and Spanish, with only a portion of the people we met speaking English. Here in Bilbao the people speak Basque and Spanish, with English a distant third language. Although most are not overly friendly, the people are not rude and seem to try to understand us. As an example, we were trying to decipher our map on the walk back from the hotel and an English speaking Spaniard with his family stopped to provide directions.

Our hotel has free internet (remember when I said the cheap hotels are the most likely place to get internet?) so we are both taking advantage of the opportunity to catch up on our e-mail and blog. We leave tomorrow, so if anyone has anything to communicate do it today while we have communication.

No word from Caitie yet on Sylvania, but when we hear how the visit went we will pass it along so you can all consider your future trips to this destination hot spot.

Ciao,
Deanne