A few days off: Bilbao

For most of us Bilbao = Guggenheim. 

It is a very shiny museum of modern art and the shiny bit is made up of a load of titanium tiles.

If this was in England, you would see a steel frame and scrap yards full of titanium tiles.

It must be architect Frank Gehry’s best known building, though he also designed a bodega/hotel in Elciego which may be his least well known. 

According to the municipal bumph, this museum is at the very cutting edge of modern design. But the toilets would not look out of place in a 1990’s winebar in Cricklewood [a slightly rundown and very overpriced suburb of north London – Ed.]

You can tell a lot about a place from its toilets. 

Apart from that there is little I can add to the acres of stuff already written about the Guggenheim. If you want to know more, Google it - or go.

Out in the streetis a statue of ex-premier Jose Antonio de Aguirre y Lecube looking sort of parochial and not a little humble 

 

Tricia keeps telling me that it rains a lot in the Basque region, this is unequivocal evidence – even the prime minister takes a hat and a brolly.

It reminds me of the John Betjeman statue at St Pancras:

We only got to see the statue of Jose Antinio because the signposting to the Guggenheim was so bad. The guidebook says you can see it from the Plaza Eliptica in the Moyua district smack in the centre of the city. The guidebook lies. 

We walked right round the plaza peering up each radial boulevard until we got back to the start and finally looked at the map. 

Street signage is a difficult business at the best of times. In a city which has to do everything in both Spanish and Basque the street signs are more confusing that informative for those of us who speak neither. 

To the credit of the city fathers, the reverse of Bilbao's street signs are more fun than the fronts are informative:

Personally I suspect they are in a third language, a sort of organic bar-code which can be deciphered with a smartphone app and are intended to tell you where you have been.

On the weekend that Barcelona was holding its last bullfight, we passed this poster in a shop window.

 

Provocative stuff, but no one seems to take it personally and the shop is unmolested – so far.

Competition time: What the hell is this?

It is just inside the door of what the guide book claims to be one of the largest markets in Spain. We are convinced that this is no larger than many others we have seen and suspect that the guidebook lies.

The thing is an umbrella condom dispenser. You stick your wet paragua in the hole at the top and swipe it out of the slot at the front to reveal a brolly in a plastic sheath to prevent it dripping on the floor. More evidence of heavy precipitation in Bilbao.

Dripping paraguas must have been a serious problem at one time.

Verdict: Get a new guidebook