The Spain Wandering - Day 1: Bilbao

We left the Gatwick Airport just before 7am today and landed without issues in Bilbao, Spain.

Yesterday's activity were mostly fighting through the process of getting ESIMs installed onto our respective phones.  The process, at least to us, didn't prove easy or intuitive but we got through it with help from HolaFly support.  They're the data-only ESIM providers we used.

Anyways, after landing and retrieving our luggage we found and bought a Barik Transportation Card which allows us access to all public transport within the Viscaya or in Basque: Bizkaia.  

We caught the direct bus into Bilbao and took it to its first stop near the Guggenheim Museum.  Yep, that famous museum.  We had our bags with us of course so we couldn't really go in then.

From the bus stop, it was a short walk to the Tram station which eventually took us to the Arriaga Stop near our hotel.  Again, we used the Barik card, quite convenient and way cheaper than Uber!

The room wasn't ready so we checked our bags with the hotel and went wandering.  

We saw this from a short distance, walked closer and yep, we had to go in to see what was the deal:

Yep, a store dedicated to figurines of famous people, worker occupations, sports, etc all taking a dump.  Here's just one of the several wall shelves filled with the figurines.

Martha, of course, bought two.  One for Thing One depicting a favorite anime character and the other just a Basque Farmer caricature.

First order of business was getting Martha's iPhone battery replaced.  We spotted a repair shop on the way to the Tapas/Pintxo snacks.  They're called specifically Pintxo here in Basque country, the locals don't like the Tapas moniker apparently.

As the phone was being repaired, we wandered nearby and checked out the Cathedral de Santiago:

Soon enough, less than 30 minutes, we returned to the phone shop and got Martha's phone back.  The old battery had started swelling it seems, leading to preceding weeks' wonky behavior.  65 Euros to have the battery replaced.  Not bad.

Now it was time for some Pinxtos!  We went to an eatery recommended to us by our hotel's receptionist.

The small joint was a bit crowded, especially at the food counter where one placed orders.  Still, we managed to point out likely candidates for consumption as you can see above.  They were all tasty, and like dim sum, no need to ask exactly what was in it.

Tummies full and suitably lubricated with red wine, we walked the 20 minutes or so to the Guggenheim Museum.  The walk is along the river and quite pleasant; the architectural views of old buildings, narrow streets and overcast misty skies was quite pleasant an experience.

Bilbao's City Hall

I will most likely take lots more pictures of the buildings framing the narrow roads in the Casco Viejo or Old Town Center tomorrow.

Here's some of the views we saw of and around the Guggenheim Museum.  The crowds had grown quite large unfortunately but we soldiered through.  All the tickets were sold out for today but we'll attend on Monday, tomorrow.

I must confess, I edited out most of the people out of the two shots above the selfie above.  There were a lot of people walking in and out of the shots.

The below pic of the "Maman" Spider was replete with people taking selfies and getting pics of themselves underneath it.  I deleted those as well.

We made our way back to the hotel, mostly following the river back.  As you can see, the weather was slightly rainy (very light stuff).  The most perilous part of the day was dodging herds of people out for a walk with umbrellas deployed!

The room still wasn't quite ready so we were comp'ed a couple of drinks at the hotel bar.  We're being treated very well at this hotel and the room price was reasonable given the location and easy access to the old town center.

Way too tired, even after an afternoon nap to do much in the way of dinner.  Not to mention the time we were out (630-730pm) was the locals time for hanging out and socializing while having snacks and drinks. Dinner for them is later which kind of makes me wonder how can they still be hungry after snacking all that time?

We ended up having tacos at this small taqueria called Surfingtacos... Pretty tasty. 

We picked up a couple of slices of cheesecake from San Sebastian for latter consumption.

We walked roughly 22,000 steps today....about nine miles....a new record for us in terms of death marches.