Bilbao and the Guggenheim

More immersion in art scheduled for today, and of course more food.  But first, some history.  Bilbao, roughly an hour drive west from San Sebastian, is a city definately grown out of industry.  It does have cultural roots dating from the 14th century, and there is an old town section, but it feels much more contemporary than other similar sized cities we visited.  Being this far north, there isn't the religious waves of influence we'd become familiar with in Andalusia, but instead a complicated and repeating history of regional disputes, clashes of governments, riots, and civil wars. In relatively recent history, Bilbao was stomped on by the Napoleanic and Carlist wars, and later again suffered severe destruction by Franco.  Known for being the birthplace of the ETA (somewhat the Basque equivalent of the IRA), separatist conflicts continued until 2018.  Throughtout this tumultuous history, Bilbao kept regrowing itself, waning and waxing in economic cycles of industry and politics.  An historical port and commerce center centuries ago, exporting wool and iron ore, it is now second only to Barcelona in industrial growth.  

'Nuf history.  We're here because of the most recent influence on economic regrowth, the Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao. I will NOT discuss the Guggenheims, their vast wealth and why there is a museum here, but focus instead on some of the iconic and stunning art we saw today. 

Yet another sleek, black limovan whisked us and our guide for today, Vicky, from our hotel for the mostly motorway trip to Bilbao. Vicky poured knowledge into us along the way.  Again, my brain chose to shed a lot of important stuff but retain odd facts like Vicky is not a fan of football.  

However, the brain will not forget walking up to the museum for the first time.

Approaching the Guggenheim in Bilbao

"Poopy"

Hard to believe anything could distract the eye from that gorgeous chunk of architecture in the background, but meet "Puppy" (or Poopy" as pronounced in Bilbao).  A 12 meter high flowerpot of a dog.  Created as a temporary installation by Jeff Koons, it was loved so much by most people in the city that it is now maintained permanently.  

Front of the museum

You've earned a pass from much more reading, so the rest of this post is devoted to mostly imagery.  Be aware we love Richard Serra and I love photograhing the element of line I find in his work, so be prepared for "contemporary" and "abstract".

"Tall Tree and the Eye" by Anish Kapoor

Close up

Louise Bourgeois, "Maman"

Below is the Richard Serra gallery and following are partial views of his sculptures against the gallery walls.

All seven sculptures 

Just a photo of the gallery wall

Jeff Koons below...  "Tulips"

A view inside the Guggenheim...

Inside the museum

And now it's time for a pintxos lunch!  We're in the old town at the Plaza Nuevo, ringed with restaurants and with most seating outside.  While there is an influx of foreign tourists in summer, at this time of year Vicky informed us the Plaza is filled with about 95% locals.  

One of the six or seven pintxos ('pin-choz) we ate.. pork meatballs in a gravy with béchamel sauce.  

After sharing a few plates at one bar/restaurant, Vicky led us to another one, this time inside.  Our experience is what the locals do -- not combat eating, combat getting to the bar to order!

And the third bar... dessert.  Sorry, the carrot cake got eaten before I got the shot.  

Fully sated gastronomically from food and beer, and mentally from all the visual art and ambient noise, Vicky bat-signaled our driver (Carlos?) to pick us up for the journey back home.

The motorway between Bilbao and San Sebastian passes through some lovely country.  I'm sure there is flysch in there somewhere.  (Ah-ha!  My spellchecker has finally learned the word!)

"Gau on maitia" ("Good night my love" in Euskera).  

Cooking (and Eating)

This is our cooking class day.  Chris is our chef/instructor, and Ellie is with us again as interpreter and friend of Chris.  We started with a meet & greet at 10am (such a respectable hour) and then headed off to the market (what we'd call a farmers market at home).  While all the food we've had this trip has been delicious, we've been craving fresh greens and this was our opportunity to have some!  The Spanish may eat greens at home, but restaurants use them more as tiny accessories to show off the big piece of protein taking center stage, with white carbs dominating the non-protein portion of the plate.  When we arrived at the market, I think we all ooo'd out loud as we entered tents of produce, or more emotionally accurate, the "Temples of Produce" (please mentally hear that with reverb).

Produce Porn

More produce porn

One is not allowed to touch the produce, big faux pas, you just point to what you want and the seller will wrap/bag it for you like the treasure it is.  When Chris had gone past the vibrant green section and was selecting some onions and potatoes, I reminded Ellie that we really really like vegetables. She translated this to Chris who pondered for a few seconds, then announced we'd have aspargus.  Hooray!  But then we walked away from what looked like perfectly good Asparagus officinalis to me.  Sigh.

We expected to be hitting a few shops but did not expect turning from the "Temples of Produce" (reverb) into an adjacent building and immediate taking an escalator down to a huge food hall.  

Aisles and aisles of meat, seafood, cheeses, and preserved food of all sorts dazzled our senses.  I believe this is the Bretxa Public Market which lies underneath a three story building that looks rather like an oldish building of offices or apartments.  It's amazing!

Chris was shopping for some shrimp and hake for our cooking lesson.  We, in the meantime, acted like a bunch of children (with cameras) let loose in Santa's workshop. Ellie may have been a bit taxed keeping track of us, or even slightly embarrassed by her wayward children.  Maybe Mary was more poised, but the rest of us were just ga-ga with variety, quantity, and quality of food.

Always having a trusty Bagu shopping bad with me, I offered, and was honored, to be allowed to carry the purchases.  It was fairly heavy when we left the food hall.  A couple of blocks away we stopped in front of a shop so small we couldn't fit inside until some people exited.  This is where we were getting the asparagus.  Chris is treating us to white asparagus.  Da-da-boom -- no green for us!  We also picked up a few jars of ingredients.  The bag got heavier.  Small this shop may be, but there is a lot of specialities packed on their shelves.  

Varieties of dried beans

Around one more corner and a few steps down the street we are at the door not of Chris' home, but at something like a men's social club (a "society").  As best I understand, there are about a hundred of them in San Sebastian.  They are a gathering place for men (some clubs are mixed men and women) with a big kitchen and several large tables.  One joins a society by recommendation of existing members.  You pay an initiation plus monthly fees.  What you get is a place you can reserve, meet with your friends, have a party, or just cook a community meal.  There may be a theme to a society, the one we're in is about horse racing.  At one time, betting was done here too.  Wine and lots of little bottles of liquors are available, all on the honor system.  You track what you consume on a form and at the end of the day/night/event, put your money in a ziplock bag with the form and drop it in a slot in the wall.  I'm not sure how Chris manages to use this place but it's an interesting cultural practice.  Remember, many homes are too small for gatherings, so "society" centers provide options.  And one of the best parts is that someone else comes in to clean all the dishes and mop up afterwards, that's covered by your fees.  

The society meeting room 

Chris getting the oven ready

We donned aprons, washed hands, and were assigned tasks.  This was not a meal of measurements, we simply peeled, sliced, or chopped the produce.  When asked if we liked peeled or unpeeled shrimp to eat, we too quickly said "peeled".  So then we had to peel and gut those, too.  I missed the part why Mary got exemption from processing shrimp, but maybe it was because she behaved herself in the food halls.

Our meal started with anchovy, pickled pepper, and olive pintxos (the Basque tapas-like servings of food), and Basque sausage which we ate standing up while things simmered and roasted in the background.  

Oops, ate some before the photo

Lightly spiced Basque sausage 

Next,  a table was set and our first course was served -- white asparagus (boiled for 18 minutes) with a roasted red pepper, onion, and parsley vinaigrette.  The irony of asking for fresh green vegetable was not lost on us, but we agree, the white asparagus was tasty.  Some of the asparagus was julienned and sautéed in olive oil, too.  Even Ellie admitted the Spanish like vegetables overcooked.  

Next up were the shrimp.  Butter, olive oil, something like an ancho pepper, and whiskey made the rich sauce they're swimming in.  We missed photographing the flames shooting up the stove hood vent as the alcohol was burned off, but it was rather alarming.

And then came the main course, hake on roasted potatoes and onions. The sauce was made by draining and reintroducing the liquid in the sheetpan three times, with reduction and added ingredients in between.  

The penultimate dish was a very delicious, raw sheep's milk cheese with cubes of apple jelly.  The finale was fried milk -- a custard like pudding (but without eggs) made with milk, cornstarch, and sugar, then cut into squares, battered and fried in olive oil, then generously sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

Sheep milk cheese with apple jelly

Fried milk

We were happy to learn that leftovers would be taken home and consumed by Chris' and Ellie's families this night.  We should have been ashamed that there was only a serving of hake and potatoes left over.  But there was a LOT of the fried milk to spare.  The quantity of dessert is explained by intentional calculation on Chris and Ellies part as there are children at home who are expecting this treat.

Wined and dined, and with promises of recipes in emails, we said goodbye to Ellie and Chris.  We hoofed it back to the hotel fairly quickly as both Mary and I were cold.  Yes, we'd been in a kitchen with an oven and big stove, but it is a basement room and I don't think there is any other heating.

After a little nap (when in Spain...), I gathered up our dirty clothes and headed to the laundromat. Peter forewent (sp?) a nap and had already done his laundry.  This unmanned business had only three washers and two dryers, and one chair, but I had it to myself for the whole hour needed.  Here, too, was a lack of heating and with the street door perpetually open, I was cold all over again.  

Mark, in the meantime, rented a bike and went for a ride around the bay.  

And so our day ends, comfortably warmed back in our room.

Good sleeps.

 

San Sebastian and Surrounds

Today we visit three towns along the coast to the west of us, Zumaia, Getaria, and Zarautz.  But first, I must give a shout out to all the street cleaners and rubbish collectors in Spain.  This morning's novelty in urban hygiene is a tricycle that must be designed for removing trash bags from receptacles hard to reach by a truck, and do so quietly.  Given this gentleman can retrieve only a limited volume of garbage, there must be a lot of to-ing and fro-ing to a hidden collection area.  And every worker I've smiled at has smiled back.

Pedal powered garbage collection

Zumaia is famous for cliffs of flysch, a word my spellchecker tried three times to convince me I meant a different word.  This location of geologic layering has been a tourist attraction for a long time and the word, flysch, is incorporated into many street, hotel, and business names.  Mark and I espied a road cut through a very dramatic section of flysch on our way from the airport to the hotel yesterday, so we had great hopes for up close and personal photo ops with flysch today.  (I'm typing "flysch" so much just to piss off the spell checker.)  Two things prevented achieving our goal.  The first was the viewpoint Ellie took us to was at the top of a cliff with a miserable combination of wind and rain.  The second issue was that our expectation of being on a beach with awesome perspectives of stratification and water reflections was not in the itinerary Ellie had planned.  She did make some comment about "we'll see", then preceeded to tell us how good the bus was to get here on our own next Monday.  Fair enough.

A very windy and wet so-so view a line of flysch

Highly processed photo of flysch to imply what it might look like if not raining

Leaving all possibility of landscape flysch photography behind, we chalked up (no geo-pun intended) our loss.  Even though the weather got worse, we switched to "happy" mood and looked forward to the next town, Getaria, an active commercial fishing town with maybe interesting thing to shoot.  We were not disappointed. 

Starting at the higher end of town, we walked down the old main street and saw the outdoor grills common to many restaurants here.  If i got the folklore story correct, the origin of these barbeques came about when fishermen, back from a hard spell at sea, would stop at a bar on their way home to quench their thirst.  A pub owner noticed that when the men, hungry as they were, ate fish, they would drink more.  Grills were set up to promote the cooking of fish (not sure whether by the fishermen or the pub owner) and it was apparently a win-win situation.

We popped in a church, Salbatore Deunaren Eliza, on the way down to the bay.  Definately local, it is beautifully grand in structure and without the austentacious overkill of adornment.  

Salbatore Deunaren Eliza

Harpooned whale carving

I haven't mentioned it yet, but we are in Basque country.  Everywhere two languages are used, Spanish and Euskara which is considered an isolated language, related to no other known language family and itself having many dialects.  Basque fishermen not only plied the local waters for fish, but sailed the whole Atlantic as whalers.  The church we were in had several references to fishing, one being the carving in the first pew of a harpooned whale.

Finally reaching the dock we got a good look at boats designed for harvesting anchovy.  I want to see one in action to understand how it works.  

We then visited Maisor, a family owned business which, in their words, is an "artisan elaboration of canned anchovies".  That rather literal translation means they specialize in producing high quality anchovy products.  If you like anchovies (I do), this is the shop for you.  The shop also has large windows allowing visitors to watch the women who process each anchovy by hand (!) prior to packaging or bottling. 

Hand processing anchovies 

Conversation stopping fact number 53, these women clean their hands with toothpaste to remove the fish odor.  Must try that at home.  

Back in the limo/van, we head up hill just out of town to the Ameztoi winery.  A very common phrase used on this whole trip is "imagine you see..." when standing in front of something you should be seeing but can't because of the rain.  Ushered to the prime table in the tasting room, we should have been viewing the Atlantic Ocean.  I mean, it's right there, behind the green bottle in the photo.  But nope, all we see is close range, albeit still lovely, wet hillside.

First pour with supposed ocean in background 

Fortunately, not seeing the ocean did not hinder our tasting of three versions of Txakolin wine made from a uniquely local grape of the same name.  Being a vintner here is tough.  Firstly, the rest of Spain is knocking out some good stuff that this tiny little, low sugar grape has to compete with in-country.  Secondly, from an international standpoint it's relatively close to France, a big bully and know-it-all of a wine producer.  Thirdly, the environment is apparently not too favorable for growing wine in the first place.  It normally rains in this part of Spain about 200 days of the year.  This is good for grass, but not good when grass grows under the vines, sooo..., the trunk of the vines are trained to a height of almost two meters, keeping the grapes away from the evil grass.  Grapes are picked by hand, reaching overhead.  At this point, we're just so grateful the wine made it to our glasses at all, that we appreciate it for its shear tenacity of existence.  BTW, they do make a very nice, light, slightly effervescent white that I think has been great with many of the tapas we've had.  All is good.

A break in the rain

The rain stopped and clouds lifted enough to see the sea.  Even in dreary, wet conditions, the topography is beautiful.  BUT, I kid you not, between the time I took the photo above, then walked to the van, and got to the head of the road to the winery, it was raining again.  

View out the window

Our last town to visit was Zarautz for lunch.  I opted for a starter of squid ink risotto with fried squid, followed by lamb lasagna, and finished with pistachio filled crispy éclairs.  On the checklist of the seven deadly sins, I'm batting a hundred for gluttony.  

Tasty squid ink rice with squid

We desperately needed to walk after eating and rain or not, we headed to the beach and long promenade.  We got lucky and had a not raining experience.  It was overcast but quite nice.  For whatever geologic reasons, this long stretch of beach is popular for surfing. We passed several surf shops and could imagine what this place will look like with crowds of summer visitors.  Summer, also know as the few months it doesn't rain as much.  

Long promenade in Zarautz

Surfers gotta surf

Back to San Sebastian in the late afternoon.  Later on Mark went out to shoot some night scenes and I stayed in to enjoy our cozy room. 

Sleep well.