December 28, 1998

Bilbao

Spain

We’re following the coastal road west from San Sebastian, through the Spanish Basque country. The seas in the Golfo de Vizcaya are rough, and at Getaria the secondary highway has completely broken off and slid down the cliffside and into the sea. There was a giant storm. Now the road is in pieces, precariously stuck, in parts, to the edge of Spain.

There is no detour, and we follow a pitiful road up the hill beyond the town and find ourselves back with the sheep in a farmer’s driveway. The thing is, we’re following a Spanish family and there’s someone following us. We’re all lost, trying to find the rest of the coastal road, and dodging the shepherd and his few hundred wards.

An hour later, we’ve found our way back to what looks like a coastal route. The road winds merrily among lush woods and green, panoramically situated fields. A farmer combs a small section of grass that sits atop the cliff overlooking Lekeitio. There’s a tiny island spurting palm trees between the farmer and the cityscape, with laundry lines and tile rooftops and the ever crashing, ochre beach.

We travel inland to Gernika (Guernica) where Basque leaders, for centuries, met under democratic assembly under an oak tree. On April 26, 1937 Nazi aircraft carried out Franco’s orders to bomb the busy market, killing 2000 people and destroying the symbolic tree. It was Europe’s first air raid on civilians, and inspired Picasso’s Guernica, commissioned for a Republican Government exhibition in Paris. Guernica, possibly the most famous single work of the 20^th Century, hung in a New York Gallery until 1981, reflecting the artist’s wish that it should not return to Spain until democracy was reestablished. It was then moved to the Prado in Madrid, and then in 1992 moved to the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (a 20^th C Art Museum) in Madrid. The Oak of Gernika, now a petrified remnant of the 300 year-old tree, sits in a pavilion in the town, and remains a symbol of the ancient routed of the Basque people.

Bilbao sits at the edge of the Nervion Estuary, and spreads for 16km with suburbs and industry. It is the capitol of the Viscaya Province and Spain’s leading commercial port. Entering the city on the dual carriageway gives us an unobstructed glimpse of the new Guggenheim, inaugurated in 1997. It swirls like something one would doodlingly construct out of tinfoil. It’s shiny and boxy and looks hand-made, its lines drawn quickly and confidently like an Arthur Dove. There are curvy smooth parts, too, with unique sanded stone-blocks that connect in an undulating series of layered walls. Rich is elated at the sight. The Nervion River is smooth and reflects , surrounded by industrial land and further, the 14^th C Old City.

Dad has told us to stay at Bilbao’s most luxurious hotel, the Ritz Carleton, in the centre of the city, at the Plaza de Frederico Moyua. Traffic bulges and we funnel to just that place. Dad has remarked that the hotel is surprisingly inexpensive, and I hop from Alfi and into a breathtaking lobby to inquire about a room. 13,500 pesetas. That’s $135 CDN, indeed, reasonable for a five-star hotel. But reasonable for us, if we want our journey to last longer than a few months, is beyond half of that price. We consider treating ourselves, but we just can’t bring ourselves to drop all of that cash on two nights when we have just spent the last seven weeks living in the lap of luxury for a few hundred Canadian dollars a week. There are some things, when travelling, that one gets into one’s head and finds very hard to break. Everything has a perceived priority and value. Things like books and car repairs take top drawer. A comfortable bed is important (unless the weather is fine and you can blow up your Thermarest), and restaurants are most often out of the question. Rich and I set our priorities according to what we think is most vital and interesting, and budget according to what we can tolerate. We know we are already travelling in moderate luxury, and a moderate hotel is worth it for phone lines and heat.

Rich is floating on a very full bladder and can’t think. The traffic doesn’t help. We cross town and find the Tourist Office, get a map and a list of accommodations, and step into a bar and order dos café solos. Small, hot, sweet, powerful. Rich empties himself and then we empty the tiny cups and pow wow our next move.

Now I sit in an ashtray of a room across the street from Sex Shop American, with a bitter lady behind the desk playing her television loudly and smoking herself into oblivion. We’re down the street from the Ritz. It’s so sad, I know, and I never would have known what I was missing if I hadn’t had that blasted five-star consideration planted by Bob. Now that I’ve seen the lobby of Bilbao’s finest hotel I have to get a hold of myself here and recover.

The city is lively and the boulevards packed with Boxing Day shoppers. We cruise the Gran Via de Don Diego Lopez, lined with designer shops and dripping, Baroque architecture and modern, functional office towers. I can’t see the sidewalk. It’s a sea of fur coats (though it’s 15 degrees) as young couples and children line up in front of the life-sized Bear’s Jamboree. There’s a Spanish band strumming and singing, and a very small boy at the front keeping time with sticks. The lights of the boulevard flash and illuminate a fiesta of late-night activity. We want to eat but nothing is available until 9pm. The illustrated menu outside each bar and cafeteria taunts with pizzas and paellas, but when we ask for a menu we are shooed away with, "no, no, you can’t have that, not now". People are drinking and shoving little pastries with anchovies into their mouths. Now we have to reset our stomachs. A bartender takes pity on us and throws a ready-made paella into the oven while we wait with a cerveza and a limonade.

The eating schedule in Spain is as follows:

Breakfast (Desayunos) consists, first, of a light meal of biscuits with olive oil or butter and café con leche (milky). The Spaniards eat breakfast again at 10 or 11am, consisting of a savory snack of bocadillo (sausage sandwich) or a tortilla de patatas (potato omelet) with juice, beer or coffee.

At 1pm everything stops. Shops close and everyone steps into a bar for a beer or a glass of wine with tapas. By 2pm people arrive home from work for La Comida (lunch) – the main meal of the day, or have lunch in a restaurant if they can’t get home.

At 5:30 the cafes and pastelerias (pastry shops) fill up for La Merienda (tea) with cakes, pastries and sandwiches and coffee, tea or juice.

At 7pm the bars are crowded with people having tapas with wine and sherry and beer. More standing and talking (This is when the bartender tell us to go away there is no paella yet). Lots of smoking.

Saraphina Mosey - Inspiration for exploring life.
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