Getting back to a more normal-for-us rhythm, we left the apartment by 10:15 and took a little different walking route, along the river Nervion to the museum. We stopped for a much needed coffee on the way, bought our tickets and we were in the art world again.

Mikel had told us to start at the third floor, with the permanent collection and so we did. On entering you are faced with this early, angry Basquiat:

There was so very much but not too much, to take in and enjoy in these rooms.

I really got a chuckle from these Tom Sachs works:

And the 150 Marilyns where the colors really capture you:

We enjoyed the second floor special exhibit “Arts of the Earth” with much of the work reminiscent of Venice Biennale work.

This room said the trees had been “rescued” from red carpet events and will later be planted in Bilbao:

The audio guide, downloaded onto your phone by qr code, was helpful.

Like most good museums, there was so so much input. We tried to rest for a while but we just ran out of internal space to take it in. One more thing about this Guggenheim. It is so much more than the art on the walls. Being in this special space with no straight lines is a thrill in and of itself.

Leaving we were confronted by this good old fashioned student protest–something about closing schools:

We walked back to the old town and went for lunch in a place right near our apartment. The downstairs had funky looking pintxos but we went upstairs to a small room with white table cloths and a daily menu. Thanks to our translator on our phones, we could decipher it because the waitress did not speak English. I had a simple soup with some little shrimp and delicious langostinos alla plancha –which were large shrimp, cooked perfectly. Ken had a salad with chicken and a little skinny grilled steak which he didn’t really enjoy. I had house made cheese cake. Apparently, and according to our guide Mikel, Basque cheese cake isn’t really a thing–just a marketing scheme. Ken had a coconut flan. By the time we got back to our apartment it was raining and it is predicted to continue for the rest of our visit.

We went out for an evening stoll using the umbrellas provided in the apartment. Got some fresh bread and ate it with the supermarket ham and the last of the soup. These big lunches are ruining my appetite for dinner but they are easy on the budget.

The rain sounds lovely outside, but going out??? We’ll see.