Bilbao, Spain

After seeing the best of San Sebastian, we spent a total of two days in Bilbao, one of which I spent staging at restaurant Azurmendi. Here are a few pics from around the city. Azurmendi post will be up soon, check back!

Onwards to Bilbao

The breathtaking Guggenheim museum. Worth the trip alone. 

Giant flower puppy sculpture, the flowers change four times a year with the seasons. 

The museum was designed by an American! Frank Gehry. The museum itself was a structural work of art. 

                                      

Giant glass balloon roses.

Tremendous spider sculpture, created by Louise Bourgeois.

Technically, no cameras were allowed in the museum. I just couldn't help it! The inside was topsy turvy. You couldn't tell if you were walking on the floor or the ceiling...

One of the world's largest sculptures designed by Richard Serra: Matter Of Time. This room was unbelievably huge! These gigantic rolled steel sheets were about 14 feet tall and each weighed nearly 300 tons. 

You could walk through each sculpture, and call out noises, it was fascinating to see how the echo responded, dependent on the steel's shape.

A to-scale model of the room.

Bird's eye view.

The entire exhibit. Starting to get an idea of how big this thing really is?

Twisted glass walls....

Digital walls...

More Bilbao architecture. The whole city was like an art project.

A great salumi shop we happened upon. 

Spanish cheese! Queso de Apyoyo was my favorite by far, a salty creamy sheep's milk from the Navarra region.

An exceptional chocolate shop we found. Tons of raw and blended chocolates. Some of the oddities included cumin flavored, strawberry and rose, and a gin and tonic made with white chocolate!

Eat some salami, smell some stinky cheese, enjoy some weird art, you'll be happy you did,

Taylor