Gotta love the Basque people!

Yesterday I spent my time roaming around the old part of the city. There were the narrow cobbled-like streets, the oldest church, the historical museum and like that. Today my first task was to see if I could remedy the oops I created for myself yesterday. I went directly to the train station and fortunately, it wasn't crowded and the wonderful, wonderful ticket agent there (Carmine, I think she said her name was) took the time to get me on my way. It was great because when I gave her the name of the the town in Portugal I was trying to get to, she said couldn't find it. However, Carmine is not one to give up. She kept typing and meanwhile was enlisting the help of her coworker, possible her supervisor, and everynow and again he would walk over and give her some instructions and together, they were able to come up with the tickets I need to get me on my way to Portugal. A grand shout out of thanks to her for that.

With that wee problem solved I continued on with my day a bit lighter in step. I had my same tourist map from yesterday and this time instead of the 'old city' section I followed the part for Abando. I don´t really know what that translates to but it was a highlight of the more modern places around town even though it started at the town hall which is a really impressive town hall. Next photo upload op, I'll try to get that one on here. There was a modern sculpture right across from the town hall so that´s the tie into the modern city, I guess. I took the funicular train to the scenic overlook. That's something the tourist info people here should tell you to do first! What a great visual aid. Back down the hill and across the glass bottomed footbridge over the river! That a weird sensation especially since it had been raining most of the morning and the bridge surface was slicker than deer snot on a doorknob! In spite of that I made it the Guggenheim where I spent the rest of the morning and a good start of the afternoon. This is one of those museums that provides audio guides. When you see a piece that you want more info about, you locate the little info sign or card associated with it. If there's a number on the card with a little picture of headphones or some similar audio icon, then you punch in that number and here a pleasant voice telling you about the art work and the artist &/or some related little known and ever less cared about fact. Punch in the #1 at the stary and you get the introduction. At this museum, the introductory commentary provided a great tour of the building itself because it is a work of art just by itself. (Architecture by Frank O. Gehry) I like that kind of stuff. In fact I think a large part of my visit in the Louvre was taken up with the history of the building! The other aspect I enjoyed about this particular museum is that the works are accessible more so than most of the other places I've visited. There is one entire wing filled with giant iron sculptures that you don´'t just stand around and look at. (I´ll get the name of the artist in here soon.) You get to, in fact, have to walk through them. The commentary for these works is by the artist himself and he describes the pieces from the inside out. There were at least two galleries with works like that that I got to.

After I left museum, I continued my stroll looking for a likely spot to have lunch. Forgive me, but I went to a Burger King in a shopping mall. (My budget was shot after paying for the train reservations to get to Portugal!) There were two stops left on the days walk-the Belle Art Museum and the Maritime Museum. I went for the boats. The Maritime Museum is a medium sized museum or maybe it's even a small museum but it's really well done so it seems like there's more to it. I gleaned more of the history of Bilbao from this museum than I did from the Basque Historical Museum yesterday. Of course, that was due mainly to the English language film/slideshow available in the Maritime Museum, I'm sure.

Now I'm back at the hostel, sharing my day and looking forward to tomorrows sights. I've been told the cathedral in Burgos is not to be missed. I'll let you know!