Today we’ve hired a car to visit my much loved little seaside town Noja which is only an hour to the west of Bilbao. I spent 7 weeks here in 1990 and 2 weeks in 1991 and was excited to go back and have a look at it. We drove through Santona, a fishing village just before Noja and this was the place I used to go market shopping. It didn’t look anything like the little village it was and we couldn’t see a market to have a look at so went straight on. As you would imagine Noja has changed soooo much in the last 20 years. It’s pretty big now and built up with many more shops but the beach is just the same and we played for a while on there with the girls swimming in rock pools and looking for crabs. We drove around and saw some old haunts. Paulo’s was hardly recognisable Tam as was a flash done up place now and we didn’t go in. Campground is still there and needless to say the bbq fish paddock is gone. I couldn’t even establish where it had been with all the building that has gone on. We had a lovely lunch in a mid town restaurant of calamari, pulpo (for Sienna) and cod stuffed piementos which were divine. After a lovely relaxing day we headed back to Bilbao with all the confidence of seasoned locals and attempted to find our rental car park. Hmmmm. Bilbao is full of one way streets and in the afternoon all the major roads turn into taxi/bus only. Needless to say we made like a taxi as the only roads we knew were the main ones. We had “looks” from everyone we passed and sunk further down into our seats looking madly for street names and by the time seeing them and pronouncing them to the other, was up to the next one. We finally found our street and turned up it only to be greeted by drivers looking at us honking and screaming something. Yes, it was a one way street and we had to 3 point turn in front of everyone. It was one way near the river and we had to get to the car park from the other side. So around we went over the bridges and tried everything coming from the other direction but all the streets are intricate and one way. Around and around we went over the taxi/bus only bridge and back round the other side. You could say that tempers were beginning to unravel ever so slightly so we decided to stop at the railway station where the office was and I got directions. It was a really convoluted way to get back in and eventually we did it. This is hours after 1st trying. You would have thought that it was never again for a rental car, but unfortunately we have decided to drive ourselves to San Sebastian.
We said a sad goodbye to Bilbao where we have had so much fun and headed for the car rental again with renewed enthusiasm. We decided to drive the car to the Guggenheim museum on route to San Sebastian. Ha ha ha. There were roadworks around the museum and so had to find a park elsewhere. What a farce. We ended up just driving till we saw a underground parking spot and thankfully after wasting an hour finally got one about a kilometer away. We found a lovely little café with a view of the Guggenheim and looked at it in awe while refueling. If you haven’t seen this building you ain’t seen nothing yet. Mindblowing is really too soft a word. It is utterly amazing, inside and out. When you stand inside it and look up there are just so many angles and materials and things going on that you could look for hours and keep seeing new things. Anyway we loved it. Was really good to see all the art inside too. Unfortunately the girls saw it as a playground and loved the huge floor standing sculptures that you could walk in and around like a maze and when I returned from the toilet at one point the art Nazis were on Brendan blabbering at him with hands moving rapidly, while the girls were laughing in glee playing peek a boo around the sculpture and then running wildly to the next one. I had t0 make out I was disgusted with his parenting and round them up. It was hard keeping them in check for the morning but the odd bribe of lolly helped a lot. Some of the art was truly amazing and you could look for hours but there was one room with the standard modern display of a square on the wall one side and a circle on the other etc. Didn’t spend long in there! We both had a weird feeling after coming out like it was a bit of a spiritual experience and we really enjoyed it. And we decided that we probably should be full time artists. With this new inspiration, I’m sure we could forge a career each. Brendan was starting immediately and posing us in weird places around the museum outside and we had to stand looking nonchalant while he created photographic masterpieces! Would have spent much longer if we didn’t have the girls with us. People fly into Bilbao from all around the world just to see this museum.
When we came out, low and behold, the biggest most amazing architectural playground imaginable so obviously we had to let the kids go wild for a while. It’s so great how many playgrounds and kid friendly things there are here. Much better than home. They love their kids these Amigos.
Then it was time to collect the car and actually find where we left it. A little more temper fraying added to yesterday….with 2 people disagreeing on which way to go. In the end we found it and were on our way to San Sebastian for 2 weeks.
As we came into town we were convinced that we knew where our apartment was as we had studied the map at home a thousand times, however we didn’t have it with us did we! Oh boy, here we went again, up and down one way streets, looking for street names and not finding, a headache and hushed terse tones etc. After ringing the landlord 3 times (who basically spoke no English) we finally worked it out and met her an hour late. Luckily the excitement of our wonderful apartment made up for the anxious precursors. Naturally there is no where to park as we are in the city suburb of Ondarreta so had to leave the car double parked and pile our luggage inside and then rush out again – to take the car back – ha ha ha ha.
Well we did have a street name so it couldn’t be that hard could it. The girls were horrified that we had to get back in the yukky car again and they couldn’t explore their new abode – another lolly.
Not to bore you again with directional dramas, we saw the street on the map and in between one ways, the river, a football match, bus/taxi only streets we eventually got there and tempers weren’t too bad as we knew this part of the trip was over. Who was the idiot that had the ridiculous notion that driving ourselves would be fun? I would have to say, that it was ME. OK? HAPPY NOW B? ha ha
