Bilbao, Lisbon

This whole being somewhere new every day is fabulous, but exhausting!  (Especially when one is trying to keep up a blog.)  I’m certainly not complaining, but we have a lot of ground to cover.  First we headed to the city of Bilbao, Spain on the northern coast of the country.  This city is easy to walk around and filled with really nice areas.  With only a few hours in town, though, we headed to an old-town area, Casco Viejo, where we wandered the streets and found a sweet spot to eat right in the warm sun! 

I couldn’t help but laugh, though when we were hoping to see the town’s shops and restaurants bustling, only to realize we were in town right during siesta, the daily break right in the middle of the day.  The Spanish are famous for this easy-going, required loiter time where businesses basically shut down.  After lunch the plan was to head to the largest site in the city, the Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao, one of the greatest modern architectural achievements.  We wandered along the river and across pedestrian bridges before we unmistakably ran into the museum.

This building is truly stunning.  I have often found myself blown away by beautiful architecture: Notre Dame, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Eiffel Tower, etc.  This is the first time, though, that I have really been astounded with such a modern building.  The architect is said to have been emulating ship sails and the scales of fish when he created the building.  The Guggenheim Bilbao is a gigantic structure made from titanium plates that cover undulating walls that curve, wave, bubble, and do anything BUT make any sort of right angle.  It is a truly stunning building and just walking around and trying to fit it into my camera frame was enough fun that we didn’t even head in to see the art exhibits themselves! 

The next day we were in Lisbon, Portugal where I only had a few hours to get off the ship.  It was really a different port of call for the ship, though, because there are very poor areas of town.  I was able to wander up and down the hill the city is built into and walked through different alleyways and found little nooks where plaster walls were falling down and paint jobs were long-overdue.

Among all the rundown areas, though, it was truly beautiful and we enjoyed lunch and especially a outdoor bazaar area where everything from appliances to jewelry to DVD’s were being sold.  It was like the largest garage sale EVER and hundreds of people came out to buy!  Ha ha!  It was a good day, but too short!  We have just been extremely thankful for warm weather!  I finally feel like I am getting a tan and having a real summer!

Hope your autumn is off to a good start.  I am really going to miss fall this year…in Louisville, in Cincinnati, wherever.  I hope this blog finds you well and that you are taking advantage of today!  Go out and see something new tomorrow.  Go somewhere you’ve never been…even in your own hometown!  Miss you all tons…

Tripp