The rest of Spain

After leaving Deva we made a bee line to Bilbao. Jeanie and I were both excited about seeing the Guggenheim. We arrived about 2 in the afternoon, checked into our hotel right across the river and headed over. It’s much larger than I expected and make a dramatic impact on the skyline. Unlike EMP, the Guggenheim is beautiful. A sculpture outside along the river mirrors the grand scale of the museum and resembles a giant spider with an egg sack. Inside the museum is stunning, not only for the large scale, but the permanent exhibits. There are 3 red giant Venus’, and an exhibit room about the size of a football field holding 8 sculptures by Richard Serra (Wake @ Olympic Sculpture Park). We were not much interested in the Cy Trombly exhibit, but loved the History of Art.

The next day we changed our plans and decided to head toward Salamanca. We arrived about 7 in the evening and found a hotel. I had parked a couple of blocks away while Jeanie went in to see if they had a vacancy. When I went to park the car in the hotel’s garage I got completely lost. You can’t just go around the block in Europe like you can in America. I stopped 5 times to ask directions and got a fast stream if Spanish this I understood about 1/10 of. After an hour and a half, I finally found the hotel with Jeanie standing out front in the cold worried about me.
The next morning we headed out to the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca and found a sculpture exhibit. This was the one day that we left the camera in the hotel, and were really disappointed in ourselves for doing so. The sculpture was cast in bronze and consisted mostly of giant women’s heads with different hats and hairdos. There was also 5 Las Meninas sculptures in advancing height like Russian dolls.

On our way to Madrid we had to stop at Avila. After seeing the ancient town walls intact (from a distance) we had to stop and stroll through the ancient walls. More sculpture, but this time of a religious nature. There is a convent inside the old town and many, many shops for tourists. Go figure.

We reached Madrid in the afternoon in time to drop our car off at Atocha Station, grabbed a cab and headed for our hotel which was nearby. After checking in we went in search of a restaurant, but unfortunately for us it was siesta time and everything was closed. We had to wait till 7:00 or 7:30 for the restaurants to open. We were directed to a pizza place nearby and went there a couple of nights later. We were so happy to have pizza instead of tapas, we declared it the best pizza we had ever had.

The next day we checked out Plaza Mayor and found a restaurant that served pasta. Yum. The Spanish do pasta well. We did some shopping, took a siesta and then went to the Prado. The Prado was only about 4 blocks from our hotel and we walked over. Once inside, I found it overwhelming. There are 3000 paintings in the Prado’s collection and 1500 on display over 3 floors. The rooms are huge. I don’t think they did anything on a small scale there. The paintings were huge as well. We had to go back the next day with a game plan drawn out because we realized we would never be able to see everything. I got to see my beloved Goya paintings, but the Naked Maja was on loan to another museum. Still, it was the Prado and I was there.

Later we wandered over to the Museo de Raina Sofia where Gernika is on display. To experience that painting in life was a dream come true. It is a memorial to the 10 thousand people who lost their lives, and seems even more relevant today than it was when Picasso first painted it. Jeanie wept, I was in awe. Jeanie got too close and set off the alarm, which someone did about every 15 minutes.

Everyone asks what was my favorite part of the trip and I’d have to say all of it. Every last minute of our vacation was better than we could ever have expected. We both kept pinching ourselves the whole time we were in Spain. Jeanie and I make great travel partners. I was the driver and she the navigator. All the people, places, food, art, everything enchanted us. I could not have asked for a better vacation. We loved our day trip to San Juan de Luz in France and decided that France deserved our next visit. Perhaps a week in Paris and a week driving around. J Can’t wait.