Mark arrived late the previous night after a conference in Riga, so now the gang of four was complete.
After a quick cortana and good morning to Ernesto, we were off to an early morning visit to the La Ribera market, the largest covered market in Europe. The market’s website says it opens at 8.30. We thought that this was a bit late, as most markets in most places open very early. We didn’t factor Spanish Mean Time into account. Whilst the gates might technically open at 8.30, the vendors start rolling up around 9.00. So we shpatzed around the neighborhood for a while until things opened up a bit. Upon returning, the vendors had mostly started putting out their wares, and the bar seemed open for business. We’d left the hotel around 8 and had been ambling slowly for this past hour and a half. It seemed the perfect time for a drink. We thus instituted what was to become one of our staples on the trip. Locally produced vermut (basque vermouth). Served with ice, an orange slice and an olive on a stick, its was the perfect light alcoholic start (middle and end) to the day. Pintxos were invented as an accompaniment to drinks at the bar, and who were we to insult Basque culture? So freshly cooked fried cod, potato salad, and a few other light snacks were ordered, purely as a sign of respect, of course. We would be showing them a lot of respect over the next few days.
Drinking at 9.30 a.m. may seem a little over enthusiastic, you might think. Hmm. You might be right, but it just seemed the right thing to do at the time. Numerous times, throughout the trip, in fact. I wish to clarify here, thus eliminating the need to mention every time we had a drink, that we did not once get drunk. And yet, we did drink enough alcohol to keep the NYC chapter of AA busy for a year. We simply spread our red wine, white wine, txakolina (a delicious local, slightly fizzy white wine that the Basques differentiate from normal white wine, so, so will I), Andalusian sherry, local vermut, local aniseed flavored hooch, gin and tonic, Aperol spritz, beer and sangria consumption over very long days.In most cities we visit, we try to have at least one tour led by a local. Certainly not a mass, 25-person shlep around the mandatory tourist highlights of the city, led by a jaded guide carrying an orange flag, but an intimate tour led by someone who is passionate about where they live. This is always a great way to get a feel of a city, learn more about it and also is almost the only opportunity to ask questions about day-to-day issues and life to a local resident. So we spent the next two and a half hours hearing about Athletic Club Bilbao (and not Athletico Bilbao, as I had thought), the history and populations of the two sides of the river, how certain streets were named and why, a little Basque politics and much much more. I think the 4 of us felt that tours like this are the essence of travelling.
The tour finished at Plaza Nuevo, which I described in yesterday’s blog. A short bar hop, where we could find ample pintxos and drink, was the perfect lunch, before the next activity.Perhaps a little unfairly, or maybe not, Yoni and I had taken a decision that a) if we were in Bilbao, we could not miss the world famous Guggenheim Museum, and b) Mark and Garry would lose interest after ten minutes. The solution was to split up for a few hours, thus making everyone happy. They walked a bit down the river, taking the long way back to the hotel for an afternoon schnooze, while we slowly wandered around the museum, pretending to understand the modern art installations. I think by the time we all met up again in the evening, we felt that we’d all had a fitting afternoon that left us all satisfied.
I don’t have enough experience to determine whether Bilbao buzzes every night, or was it especially raucous and fun because Friday night is the going-out night of the week. I suspect both. In any case, we had a long list of recommended bars, and we flitted from place to place, eating, drinking and being merry, unperturbed that in most cases we could communicate only by pointing at what we wanted to order. I did order a small dish of blood pudding rissole, which turned out to be too hard core, even for me. The fried artichoke tempura, crab purée in the shell, avocado, smoked manchego and sardines suited us all perfectly. We were a little surprised how little English was spoken and were equally as happy that we heard precious little English spoken by other tourists. The streets of Bilbao were like one giant block party, and we felt part of it, language and cultural barriers notwithstanding.
I don’t have enough experience to determine whether Bilbao buzzes every night, or was it especially raucous and fun because Friday night is the going-out night of the week. I suspect both. In any case, we had a long list of recommended bars, and we flitted from place to place, eating, drinking and being merry, unperturbed that in most cases we could communicate only by pointing at what we wanted to order. I did order a small dish of blood pudding rissole, which turned out to be too hard core, even for me. The fried artichoke tempura, crab purée in the shell, avocado, smoked manchego and sardines suited us all perfectly. We were a little surprised how little English was spoken and were equally as happy that we heard precious little English spoken by other tourists. The streets of Bilbao were like one giant block party, and we felt part of it, language and cultural barriers notwithstanding.