Bilbao, Spain, Tuesday November 25th

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Dany kindly drove us down to the Metro, and he also phoned the hotel about our problem with the cancelled booking. He said that he would follow up later when the manager was in and to call him after one o’clock. We went straight to the bus station, where they have lockers where we could leave our big back packs. The walk to the Guggenheim took us past the sports stadium, so sensibly placed near all the transport from the town and region. Today we were businesslike and marched up the sweeping stairs with gaps that make you lead with the same leg all the time, and down another small flight to the main door.

I cannot rave on enough about the architecture of the Guggenheim Museum from the inside. It is really beautiful and seems to move around you as you walk. There are no straight lines. Frank Gehry, the Canadian architect, said on the audio guide, that when he visited Bilbao, he started to scribble on the back of an envelope. Those scribbles and other free swirling drawings revealed to him the direction of his design. Materials and techniques then had to be developed to build his creation, including robots for cutting the stone to the precise shapes needed for the more subtle curves, and titanium sheet that would catch and alter the light. The titanium is used as a skin, and although in oblong shapes, has a very fishy look to it. When Frank Gehry was a child he used to accompany his mother to the market to buy a live carp, which would be kept in the bathtub until it was needed for cooking. Frank used to play with the carp. That influence has full play in this building and is one that an ordinary observer can enjoy noting.

The central hall has galleries off it, reached by stairs or a lift. Walkways spiral around the space, allowing people to maintain contact with all the shapes and curves around them, and rarely shutting them off. The galleries are different shapes and sizes. The largest is called the fish gallery and is roughly that shape. We walked through the permanently installed sculptures by Richard Serra that is called ‘The Matter of Time’. Giant sized, they are made of industrial steel and are in shades of rust, brown and black. The way that the sheets are shaped, and placed near each other creates interesting and changing shapes and sensations as you walk through it. We were able to see photos of Serra’a development since the 1960s, when his minimalist approach was creating waves and introducing new methods and materials to sculpture. Certainly the pieces here were very interesting to walk through and then to view from above, where a different perspective was gained.

There were several other installations, with one by Miquel Navarro being like a giant set of silver blocks that could be changed to make architectural shapes and urban spaces. It seemed to imply that the point was to interact with the statement that the last person had made and to move the blocks. Someone called Mohammad had made his name. But it would have taken a proper interaction, and neither of us felt like it just then. Another installation had murals, sculptures and a suspended design interacting in a space. Sometimes we had no idea what we were reading even though it was in English. I did like that piece, especially since the artist had invented a new alphabet of visual symbols, and there was a lot to look at and think about.

The feature artist was Cy Twombly, an American painter and sculptor. Many of his sculptures on display were made from a combination of everyday things, covered over in unifying and blobby white paint or plaster. They emerged as completely different shapes and with, for me, a kind of mythological presence. For Keith, it was difficult to see past the fact that these sculptures were essentially pieces of junk joined together; not particularly interesting, clever or artistic. We had varied reactions to the different pieces but Keith thought most of Twombly’s work was not worthy of being the main feature in a world famous gallery. Twombly’s painting is frenzy-like and often has written notes visible on the canvas. There were several different sequences. Some looked like scribble or diagrams on blackboards and others were a group of paintings on blossoming and decay, with red swirling circles on yellow back grounds. His sequence that I liked the most was a group of nine paintings revealing the slow process by which the Roman Emperor Commodus went mad.

The other major exhibition was called ‘All the Histories of Art’ and was part of the collection held by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. That museum was created by Emperor Franz Joseph in 1891 to house the family’s massive art collections and to allow it to be shown to select members of the public. A greater contrast to Cy Twombly could not have been found in terms of the very traditional art forms in painting and sculpture that was favoured at the time the collection was made. In six sections, that were defined for the viewer, we were to walk through eclectic collections from many eras in the categories of portraits; history, religion and mythology; nudes; popular customs; still lifes; and architecture and landscapes. I loved the definition of a nude, which was ‘any artwork in which the subject is not wearing clothes.’ There were many famous painters represented, particularly for the portraits. It is one thing to see the painting and hear of the artist, but it was wonderful to read the story of some of the sitters, who were often real and famous people. The little Infanta Margarita Theresa, painted year after year for the uncle she was already promised to in marriage, is captured by Diego Rodriguez de Silvay Velazquez in a blue dress. Is she ten? Does she have five years left before they do marry and have four children, before she dies in her mid twenties? Is she aware of all the Royal wrangling that has kept the Spanish and Austrian branches of her family interbreeding to an alarming extent? I am glad that she looks as if she had some spirit.

The painting of Charles II looked as though the painter would have been beheaded as soon as it was shown. All that is missing is a line of drool from the moist, enormous red bottom lip. Later we saw a different portrait, very similar, so it must have been true to life. We also saw a portrait of Phillip the Handsome on a coin, and thought that, although he looked fine, someone was hoping for favours when they started that nickname. It was amazing that one family could have amassed so many treasures, including items from ancient Egypt and Rome.

Compared to the Fine Art Gallery there are not a lot of permanent pieces, but there are arrangements with other museums to share their collections and to expose people to many different pieces over time. As we left, we took another turn around the central space. We really savoured how clever and how beautiful this sculpture of a building is, and how the different angles on the same wall, all painted white, were picked out in light and shade. The water garden outside runs under the walkway beside the river and has the effect of connecting the site to the river. The lines inside the building are not cluttered and move cleanly from one plane to another. The only materials are limestone, titanium scales and wood and metal. Three giant red headless Classical type statues stand to the side and watch, although of course that is not possible. A wall of words in many languages ribboned its way up in strips that you could walk past, into the blue gloom in the space behind it.

After that, we could only take a lunch break and we returned to our ‘eat all you want’ spot. It was quite late and I had not eaten much, so drinking my wine quickly was not a good idea. I felt quite tipsy, but not so tipsy that I couldn’t look up ‘drunk’ in Spanish (borracha) in our new dictionary. I could walk a straight line by the time we left but didn’t have my usual energy for setting out on a new adventure. I was all for going straight to the hotel room and calling it a day. Dany had sorted things out with our hotel, so it was not very long before, once more in rain, we were walking from the station with our packs to another room.

A call at the supermarket to buy tea for Keith (since I was full enough to skip it), and some rubbish to eat on our ten hour bus trip, and we were back in our warm hotel cocoon, setting the alarm for our early bus to Mérida. Why Mérida? Because it was as far south and as close to warmer weather as we could go in a day, and it sounded charming. We would be back with the ancient Romans again.

Bilbao was a town of the perfect size, with many interesting historical and modern sites to visit. It would also be a good place from which to start more explorations of the Basque country. The nearby beaches looked wild and beautiful in the pamphlets. Our timing had not given us the best weather, but we had still really enjoyed our visit here. We plan to spend some more time here in the future, and in Northern Spain, perhaps before or after we hit this part of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela.

The view across the river from the Guggenheim Museum - almost in the countryside

We have to go to the ATM more frequently now since the mysterious drop in the value of the Australian dollar against most other currencies.

In Spain people don't seem to have private bins, but simply put their rubbish in the nearest bin in the street. There's always one not far away and they strongly encouraging sorting rubbish for recycling.

The last time we noticed scaffolding on a building site it was in Tanzania and looking very shaky. The standard here is quite different, to the extent of having padding on the steel uprights at street level, like the goal posts at the football ground.

We didn't expect to spend longer here than anywhere else in Bilbao, but the warmth in the evenings offered by this shopping mall was irresistable. It appears to be designed to resemble a bull ring.