In Bilbao, Spain, on the Bay of Biscay

We arrived early this afternoon in Bilbao, just as the rain stopped but the heat persisted. By mid-afternoon it was upper 90's-- "but it's a dry heat." The breeze, and the relatively low humidity made it just about tolerable. We checked into the AirBnB that Tom had secured, guided only by internet descriptions and reviews, and, in a word, it's pretty scrumptious, 6 bedrooms and 4 baths shared by 5 guys-- hmm, the math doesn't work out quite evenly. All that mattered to me was that I was designated the senior member and soon-to-be 70, so I got the biggest room. 

So sorry I have no partner to share it with. 

I had two goals for our afternoon and overnight in Bilbao, and those were 1) to see the Frank Gehry designed Guggenheim museum, and 2) to have some good food and drink. I got both, and both exceeding my expectations. A few steps back: I had heard of Bilboa since before I hardly knew where Spain was, since my father-in-law, Bob Pletch, had been a buyer for the Illinois-based tool company DoAll. He would periodically fly to Bilboa for their big tool show, which fits with its history as an industrial city with manufacturing being one of its larger industries, through the late 20th century. It's the largest city in northern Spain, and the 10th largest overall, with nearly 1 million people in its metro area. As manufacturing began to decline in the 90's, as it did in many places, the region shifted to a service economy, including banking/financial services, although its port still is a hub for a large amount of foreign trade. The opening of the Guggenheim in 1997 marked the start of the growth of a cultural center, which has led tourism to become a leading industry and source of foreign income. 

Although the museum holds quite a collection of art, most of it modern (Warhol, Rauschenberg, and others), 

I consider the building itself to be the centerpiece, a beautiful structure of unpredictible angles and surfaces, covered in "scales" of weathering stainless steel and thin sheets of granite. 

The outer skin encloses soaring exhibit spaces, accessed via two glass-enclosed elevators, or stairways that double back on themselves, each landing yielding changing views of the floors and spaces below. 

The exterior is a sculpture garden, including a huge reflecting pool with red circles appearing to float on the surface; 

a giant spider, which, under night illumination, casts a huge shadow on one wall of the museum;

a gigantic topiary dog, perhaps a Shelty, covered in flowers, which changes colors with the changing seasons; 

what looked like giant ball bearings stacked on each other, each, in turn, reflecting the round red dots on the reflecting pool. 

Walking around the exterior revealed new aspects that I couldn't predict, since the angles varied and nothing was square. It exceeded my expectations. We left the museum for a hot walk down a promenade along the river, met up with two of our later-arriving bros, and dug into tapas--pinxtos, in the local Basque--and Rioja for our evening meal.