Bilbao itself is inland from that port, but is connected by the Bilbao River (Ria de Bilbao).
Not long ago the entire 9 mile (15 km) length of the river between Bilbao and the sea was filled with docks and shipyards; although these mostly disappeared in the late 20th Century, the port remains a major European shipping nexus.
The reason for our caffeine-infused morning was our trip to the famous Guggenheim Art Museum in Bilbao. Lindblad had arranged for our group to have access to the museum an hour before it would open to the general public, so no-one wanted to delay the buses!
Our first impression of Bilbao was highly positive. For example, the electric tram line that we crossed, on a pedestrian walkway, to reach the Guggenheim had grass growing between the rails whereas every other I have seen had only naked gravel.
Here we approach the main entrance to the titanium-clad Guggenheim, which faces the river across a sweeping walkway and plaza. Many of the shapes are meant to invoke Bilbao's ship-oriented history.
The art objects around the exterior are a photographer's delight. This is Tulip, by Jeff Koons.
Looking upriver our eyes were immediately drawn to the spider sculpture, Maman, by Louise Bourgeois, one of several copies around the world. "Maman" is the familiar term for "mother" in French. But as one woman in our group said, "I don't care what they call it; it's Shelob to me." Ditto, I say.
The presence of the Guggenheim, opened in 1997, has been an unparalleled economic benefit to Bilbao, giving rise to the term "Bilbao effect." The entire downtown riverfront has been renovated as part of Bilbao's recovery from the economic decline of its earlier industries, iron mining and shipbuilding. The income from the Guggenheim, direct and indirect, has sustained this renaissance. A regional council estimated increased tax revenues from shopping, restaurants, and hotels in the first three years of €100 million. This photo shows a portion of the river walk.
Then it was time to go inside. We were permitted to take pictures of the common areas, but not the exhibits. The museum's sweeping lines continued within.
Many of the exhibits were at best mildly interesting to me, and also to Joan, although some of the weathered steel works by Richard Serra, which you could walk through, were intriguing. We found the museum's exterior and the outside art works more enjoyable than most galleries.
After the first hour, the doors were opened to the public. This group of students made a good photo.
Joan and I began a tour of the outside by admiring Puppy, also by Jeff Koons. This piece has a dramatic backstory, but at the time, we admired it simply as art that was fun to see.
It is all flowers, with a stainless steel armature that is also an internal irrigation system. The scaffolding is present because the flowers were undergoing a seasonal exchange.
From another angle, the puppy appears much larger than the modern skyscraper.
I noticed a small wart on the front of the skyscraper, which turned out to be window washers.
As we followed the elevated walkway towards the bridge, I took a series of pictures, attempting to capture the drama of the Guggenheim's architecture.
Just a little further on, facing inward, was this view.
As my father would have said, "There's not a square corner in the whole place."
From the near side of the bridge there was a spectacular lengthwise view of the Guggenheim and riverfront. This image captures the shadow of the bridge's tower, which echoes the crow's nest of a sailing ship.
The above photo also records fog issuing from underneath the walkway, drifting over the pool in front of the museum. During the day this mist is generated several times, sometimes to the consternation of first-time visitors who think it is smoke. Here is a series of three images showing the development of this fog.
As you can see, it was a fine day to take this walk. Lunch, however, would be back aboard the Explorer. During lunch the ship departed Getxo, beginning a lengthy trip across the northern coast of Spain towards A Coruña and Santiago de Compostela, our destination for the next day.
We were escorted out of the harbor by a police boat, not a pilot boat, a legacy bequeathed to the Basque region by the ETA, designated as a terrorist organization by most Western countries. It is of note that the ETA had been observing a cease-fire, not its first, since 2010, and recently offered to disband, less than two months after our visit to Bilbao.
Our afternoon was filled with attending talks and visiting the bridge, a perennial favorite. Lisa Abend, Time magazine's correspondent in Spain, gave several talks during her time on board, and now that I've written about our first Spanish stop, I'd like to pass along some of her observations, which many of us found enlightening.
She gave a delightful talk on Spanish cuisine and her book, The Sorcerer's Apprentices, which follows the interns at a famous Spanish restaurant during the 2009 season.
At another time she mentioned the failure of many other projects that attempted to reproduce the "Bilbao effect." The combination of a respected world-wide institution, startling architecture, international "mind share," and construction costs kept within the initial budget never came together anywhere else.
And she related her personal views of the European economic crisis, focusing on southern Europe. Her salient point was that the underlying causes were different in each country. Greece was a classic case of borrowing without limit, excessive public subsidies, and massive tax avoidance, as painted by the world press.
Spain, on the other hand, suffered a real-estate bubble similar in many ways to that of the United States, with banks lending recklessly and middle class families acquiring easy loans to finance vacation homes. When the bubble inevitably burst, the economic tsunami was worse than in the US. Children moved back in with parents, and then everybody moved in with grandma and grandpa, because at least they had pensions. Unemployment recently reached 26%, with youth unemployment at a record 55%. That's what happens when a country has no choice but to adopt austerity measures during a severe world-wide economic downturn. This is in contrast to the United States, which pursued a policy of economic stimulation during the worst recession since the Great Depression, at the cost of greatly increased debt.
Portugal was a victim of the general downturn and its own very slowly growing economy. As Lisa put it, Portugal did everything the European Central Bank asked it to do to reduce its debt. However, the economy contracted under the twin pressures of the recession and austerity measures, so Portugal's debt as a percentage of GDP actually increased, rather than decreased, after applying the austerity measures.
You learn a lot on Lindblad trips.
The reason for our caffeine-infused morning was our trip to the famous Guggenheim Art Museum in Bilbao. Lindblad had arranged for our group to have access to the museum an hour before it would open to the general public, so no-one wanted to delay the buses!
Our first impression of Bilbao was highly positive. For example, the electric tram line that we crossed, on a pedestrian walkway, to reach the Guggenheim had grass growing between the rails whereas every other I have seen had only naked gravel.
Here we approach the main entrance to the titanium-clad Guggenheim, which faces the river across a sweeping walkway and plaza. Many of the shapes are meant to invoke Bilbao's ship-oriented history.
The presence of the Guggenheim, opened in 1997, has been an unparalleled economic benefit to Bilbao, giving rise to the term "Bilbao effect." The entire downtown riverfront has been renovated as part of Bilbao's recovery from the economic decline of its earlier industries, iron mining and shipbuilding. The income from the Guggenheim, direct and indirect, has sustained this renaissance. A regional council estimated increased tax revenues from shopping, restaurants, and hotels in the first three years of €100 million. This photo shows a portion of the river walk.
Then it was time to go inside. We were permitted to take pictures of the common areas, but not the exhibits. The museum's sweeping lines continued within.
Many of the exhibits were at best mildly interesting to me, and also to Joan, although some of the weathered steel works by Richard Serra, which you could walk through, were intriguing. We found the museum's exterior and the outside art works more enjoyable than most galleries.
After the first hour, the doors were opened to the public. This group of students made a good photo.
Joan and I began a tour of the outside by admiring Puppy, also by Jeff Koons. This piece has a dramatic backstory, but at the time, we admired it simply as art that was fun to see.
From another angle, the puppy appears much larger than the modern skyscraper.
Just a little further on, facing inward, was this view.
As my father would have said, "There's not a square corner in the whole place."
From the near side of the bridge there was a spectacular lengthwise view of the Guggenheim and riverfront. This image captures the shadow of the bridge's tower, which echoes the crow's nest of a sailing ship.
The above photo also records fog issuing from underneath the walkway, drifting over the pool in front of the museum. During the day this mist is generated several times, sometimes to the consternation of first-time visitors who think it is smoke. Here is a series of three images showing the development of this fog.
As you can see, it was a fine day to take this walk. Lunch, however, would be back aboard the Explorer. During lunch the ship departed Getxo, beginning a lengthy trip across the northern coast of Spain towards A Coruña and Santiago de Compostela, our destination for the next day.
We were escorted out of the harbor by a police boat, not a pilot boat, a legacy bequeathed to the Basque region by the ETA, designated as a terrorist organization by most Western countries. It is of note that the ETA had been observing a cease-fire, not its first, since 2010, and recently offered to disband, less than two months after our visit to Bilbao.
Our afternoon was filled with attending talks and visiting the bridge, a perennial favorite. Lisa Abend, Time magazine's correspondent in Spain, gave several talks during her time on board, and now that I've written about our first Spanish stop, I'd like to pass along some of her observations, which many of us found enlightening.
She gave a delightful talk on Spanish cuisine and her book, The Sorcerer's Apprentices, which follows the interns at a famous Spanish restaurant during the 2009 season.
At another time she mentioned the failure of many other projects that attempted to reproduce the "Bilbao effect." The combination of a respected world-wide institution, startling architecture, international "mind share," and construction costs kept within the initial budget never came together anywhere else.
And she related her personal views of the European economic crisis, focusing on southern Europe. Her salient point was that the underlying causes were different in each country. Greece was a classic case of borrowing without limit, excessive public subsidies, and massive tax avoidance, as painted by the world press.
Spain, on the other hand, suffered a real-estate bubble similar in many ways to that of the United States, with banks lending recklessly and middle class families acquiring easy loans to finance vacation homes. When the bubble inevitably burst, the economic tsunami was worse than in the US. Children moved back in with parents, and then everybody moved in with grandma and grandpa, because at least they had pensions. Unemployment recently reached 26%, with youth unemployment at a record 55%. That's what happens when a country has no choice but to adopt austerity measures during a severe world-wide economic downturn. This is in contrast to the United States, which pursued a policy of economic stimulation during the worst recession since the Great Depression, at the cost of greatly increased debt.
Portugal was a victim of the general downturn and its own very slowly growing economy. As Lisa put it, Portugal did everything the European Central Bank asked it to do to reduce its debt. However, the economy contracted under the twin pressures of the recession and austerity measures, so Portugal's debt as a percentage of GDP actually increased, rather than decreased, after applying the austerity measures.
You learn a lot on Lindblad trips.
