Plucky Survivors See Europe Day 62: Porto to Bilbao

I regretfully said goodbye to Porto, yet another cool city I don’t feel like I had enough time to explore properly.

I even more regretfully got into PluckyMobile 2 and plotted a course for Bilbao.  Because of the fires, I had to take an even longer route than what is already a long route between the two cities.  The good news is that I was able to skirt around the edges of a couple of them, about 20-30 miles south of one of the bigger ones in northwestern Portugal.  What looks like haze in the photos is actually smoke – I could smell it through the air conditioning.

But those detours, some of which involved smaller two lane highways with lots of slow trucks to try to pass, meant what should have been a six-ish hour drive wound up being an eight-ish hour one.  Most of it is through very rural areas and the eatin’ options was mighty slim.  The “food” served in the two or three rest stops I visited looked less like food and more like botulism on a plate.  I couldn’t even find a McDesperate meal, so I sustained myself with Bugles and Oreos.  Lunch of kings, let me tell you.  I was kind of done by around hour five so you can imagine what I felt like by the time I got there.

The Catalonia Gran hotel is nice.  Maybe not grand, but then again, they are missing the D.  Of course that’s not the first time I’ve heard that, am I right ladies?

Sorry, I’m still a little punchy from the drive.

But the room is nice, it has a small terrace overlooking a courtyard, and I’m here for about 18 hours so not much to complain about.  Other than the parking garage under the building, which was created for Matchbox cars and not Volvos.

I had hoped to get something to eat, but I had bought a timed ticket for the Guggenheim and that time was fast approaching, so I headed that way, snapping a few pictures as I did.  My hotel is in the newer part of the city, so old world Europe architecture is a bit lacking, but it’s still nice with parks, plazas, and a fountain or three.

The Guggenheim building is as much a work of art as the treasures they hold inside.  Designed by Frank Gehry, it has his signature style – all wavy forms and seemingly structureless.  It’s dramatic and beautiful, outside and in.

There are three floors and they had a variety of special exhibitions going on that could appeal to just about any taste.  Ruth Asawa, an American artists, worked in looped wire sculptures and abstract drawings; Jasper Johns is renown for his Americana paintings, sculptures, and drawings; and Igshaan Adams works in textiles and tapestries. 

They also had giant sculptures from Richard Serra you could walk through; pop art from the likes of Andy Warhol and his admirers; abstract art; digital art; and even an infinity room from Yayoi Kusama.

I left the museum and started walking toward old town but took a wrong turn and wound up down along the river walk.  This meant I was going to have climb a stupid amount of stairs at some point when I was weak from hunger and I was going to turn around but I decided to trudge on and figure it out when I had to.

But then I stumbled upon a parade celebrating the 201^st anniversary of the independence of Bolivia.  I didn’t know why at the time but have since learned that there are more Bolivian immigrants in Bilbao than from any other nation.  The parade featured people in traditional costumes dancing, singing, playing instruments, and more.  It was pure celebration and joy and it reminded me the of the lesson I learned at Helder’s show last night – be open to the idea that decisions can lead to beautiful coincidences.  If I hadn’t decided to continue down the river walk, I never would’ve seen the parade.

That high only last for so long and then I needed food.  I found one of the few restaurants open at 6:30pm, Aitaren Boulevard Restaurante.  It’s a fancy-adjacent place in business since 1871 that specializes in cuts of beef and burgers made from oxen and cows from their own farm.

I started with the beef gyoza, delicate pasta stuffed with ox meat on a bed of potato foam and drenched in a red wine-BBQ sauce.  Sounds strange, but they were incredible.  I could’ve had that as a full meal.  But I didn’t stop there.  I also got one of their signature burgers – aged ground beef on rustic sourdough with extra-crispy bacon (cured for 4 months), smoked cheese, homemade ketchup, and a cheddar injection.  It was cheddar cheese in a syringe that you put into the burger and inject.  A gimmick, but a really good one.  The burger was phenomenal.

I wandered around a bit in the old town district.  It was still early on a Saturday evening but you could already feel it starting to come alive as the restaurants filled up and the bars got ready for their late-night crowds.  Another really cool, well-preserved historic core.  Too bad cities in America don’t know how to do this.

Tomorrow, I take another long drive as I go around the worst of the fires to avoid Bordeaux.  My new destination is just up the coast a bit, the French town of La Rochelle.