Basque Country coast and Bilbao — Lisa's (& Steve's) Travels

We continued our driving trip along the Atlantic coast between San Sebastian and Bilbao…

… stopping in at little towns along the way…

… and to get some neat shots of the coastline…

… and bays.

Inland, there were some great rural scenes -

Besides eating in Bilbao, I wanted to visit there to see the Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Gehry.

After staying at that gorgeous hotel, this was underwhelming (sad, I know!). I was thrilled to recognize a piece of art just outside the museum:

There is an identical replica of this at Crystal Bridges in Bentonville, AR. :)

As we were walking along the river back to our apartment, I happened to glance down -

The “Drowning Girl” artwork had just been installed the previous week (apparently stirring up a bit of controversy).

At the recommendation of our Airbnb host, we visited the Vizcaya Bridge, west of Bilbao at the mouth of the Ibaizabal estuary (30 minute Metro ride). It was completed in 1893, and was the first bridge in the world to carry people and traffic on a suspended gondola.

Something that cool, we were definitely going to walk along the pedestrian passageway at the top!

There were great placards that gave interesting tidbits on the construction, like - “a system of rivets put into place one by one, by previously heating them in small furnaces placed sometimes at great heights very near the corresponding hole and hammered into place. The workmen of that period were capable of fitting several hundred rivets each day, totaling nearly 400,000 keeping the bridge together.”