The three of us visited the Basque region of Spain and France. The Basque region consists of seven historical provinces—three in France and four in Spain. It’s not a country, but a cultural region with strong nationalist sentiment. The Basque Country is located in the western Pyrenees, straddling the border between France and Spain on the coast of the Bay of Biscay. The interior has lush green hills, and rich valleys which reminded us of western Pennsylvania along the turnpike.
They speak their own language besides French, Spanish and English. It’s unrelated to any other language in Europe or the world. Spoken on both sides of the border, though more widely used and officially recognized in Spain. The language and its preservation are central to Basque identity.
We arrived in port city near Bilbao on Friday May 16th which is a nice fishing village. We took a bus to reach our destination in Bilbao for our walking tour through the streets of Bilbao.
We stopped for a great lunch of 4 different local dishes at a small restaurant along with some wine and cheese. The meal was quite tasty.
The architecture of the city is diverse of old and new. Our tour ended at the Guggenheim Museum where we walked around and saw the Spider and Puppy. The Maman by Louise Bourgeo is a large spider mother protecting her babies. Almost 9 meters tall, Maman is one of the most ambitious of a series of sculptures by Bourgeois that take as their subject the spider, a motif that first appeared in several of the artist’s drawings in the 1940s and came to assume a central place in her work during the 1990s. Intended as a tribute to her mother, who was a weaver, Bourgeois’s spiders are highly contradictory as emblems of maternity: they suggest both protector and predator—the silk of a spider is used both to construct cocoons and to bind prey—and embody both strength and fragility.
Puppy is living iconic modern floral sculpture of 40,000 flowers with internal sprinkler system made by American artist Jeff Koons.
Many say the Guggenheim Museum looks like a boat, clams, or a house. It is distinctly different with over 10k+ panels of titanium which does not absorb the eat from the sun. The structure is built of steel girders which locals stated they were not sure what it would look like until it was finished.
Giddy wanted to do the James Bond reenactment of Pierce Brosman in World is Not Enough, but we didn’t want to create a scene with Puppy watching.
The whole area of Bilbao has been transformed since the museum opened in 1997, we several architects of various buildings near the Guggenheim and various sculptures commissioned. We were unable to obtain tickets for the Guggenheim so, we headed back to our ship. That afternoon we sat on back deck of our ship with some wine and watched the sail boats.
Overnight, we cruised to St Jean De Luz in France. This was another small fishing port and we took a bus ride 1.5 hours back to Bilbao to visit the Guggenheim Museum. We toured the museum and Giddy selected his favorite painting and commented on other works.
On exhibit was some of Helen Frankenthaler’s works Painting without Rules. Some of the paintings provide different perspectives and Giddy renamed a few.
Can you See the trees within forest The two zebras The End of Everything
Star Gazing,
Giddy like the large metal sculpture called Matter of Time that was over 12 feet tall. He kept saying it is big metal sheets bent which could fall over. Alot of metal for $25M to let age and rust as art.
We liked the temporary exhibit of tulips an the Masterpieces on Paper from Budapest from years past 15th century forward.
After the museum, we loaded back into the bus for a little kip before arriving back at St Jean De Luz in France and enjoying a snack on the boat.
Our next stop is Bordeaux France where we sail up the Garonne River for some wine and cognac tour.
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