Enjoying Bilbao is just a matter of time
Sheena Sweeney finds her weekendinthe Basque capital is all too short...
Finally a chance to get away from it all, on my own for two nights. Anywhere would’ve done and by chance I ended up on a weekend break in Bilbao. My two kids and the boyfriend were staying at home. So I had one bag and no baggage. The trip into the city from the airport is only a twentyminute drive at most, which helps if you’ve only got a couple of days to be away.
I was in a group, and we stayed in the business district which is rather dull for the most part, except that it is also the home of the impressive Guggenheim Museum designed by legendary architect Frank Gehry.
This museum is quite often the reason people want to come to Bilbao, and you can see why. From the outside the wacky, stunning, ultra-postmodern architecture glints in the sunshine and ripples with the reflection of the water surrounding it, and inside it houses, as one would expect, an array of impressive exhibits. The various shows within the museum change regularly but some of the permanent works such as The Matter Of Time by Richard Serra are breathtaking both in scale and concept, as is Jeff Koons’ massive floral Puppy outside the museum and Louise Bourgeois’s huge spindly Maman.
Also very close by is the Fine Arts Museum which, when it was established, merged the collections from the Museum of Modern Art in Bilbao with the Fine Art Museum and now represents an informative collection depicting the history of art from the period before and including El Greco in the sixteenth century to Francis Bacon, who worked and lived in Ireland until his death in 1992.
Apart from the art as a draw to Bilbao, there is of course Basque food. While it might not seem like an obvious choice I ended up staying in the large, yet still delightful, five-star Hotel Melia, which boasts a small pool for a dip and a range of other spa and leisure facilities. Even in the business district, a short stroll away from the hotel, I ate in a restaurant called Guria, serving traditional Basque food and wine. The latter is inexpensive without tasting that way, although be careful, it’s strong.
In the same area you’ll also find the Michelin-star Zortziko restaurant in the Bilbao Conference Centre. I didn’t think this was an obvious destination for nonbusiness tourists, but the restaurant is worth a visit with set menus starting at €60. The decor is typically and impressively grand, and the menu offers many (tiny) morsels of delicious and unusual dishes such as anchovy lasagne. The final course, chocolates made to look like buttons served in a wooden box, was more funny than remarkable, but that could have been because of the wine or the incessant ramblings of our well-meaning but zealous tour guide.
On the more well-worn tourist trail, I did make it to the lovely and intriguing old town, Casco Viejo, which was a five-minute tram ride away. A gorgeous stroll to the Plaza Nueva followed, for some authentic Basque pintxos (the original version of tapas) and a look at the stunning cathedral. But like any short weekend you have to watch the time and how you fill it. I ended up on a wine and art tour around Bilbao, which I thought would be right up my tired, and toddler-ridden, street. Instead what I got was not enough wine or art, too much architecture and an encyclopedia of statistics courtesy of the aforementioned guide.
Even a brief foray into the excellent shopping on offer ended in a minor disaster. Having just treated myself in Massimo Dutti using my visa debit card, I found myself having a near row with the female staffofa Zaraina shopping mall. She insisted in loud and hiss- ing Spanish that I produce my passport to pay with the same card for a €30 item I wanted to get for my mother despite my protestations that I had just used it without any such hassle five minutes earlier.
Yes, fashion lovers, they do have some of the top shops, and they are cheaper over there. So make sure you’re not going to have to pay for the extra luggage on the way back (as happened to one of my fellow travellers at the check-in desk on our way home).
But none of that was enough to turn me off the many pleasures of Bilbao. Leaving only one obvious thing to say, hasta la vista baby.