Guernica, Spain

 November 6, 2025

Remembering Tim's Dad on what would have been his 105th birthday.

Once again Delta Airlines transported us safely to to our destination of Bilbao, Spain.  Since Lynda's stroke several years ago any overseas travel is done in business class. It reminds us what a joy airplane travel can be.

In 14th and 15th centuries Bilbao was one of the major ports of Europe.  As its importance in shipping faded, fishing continued to thrive. In the 18th century a rich deposit of iron ore made Bilbao one of the world's largest producers of stainless steel. Unfortunately,  in the 1970's Bilbao suffered the same fate as the rust belt of the U.S. Today, the city depends on tourism as a source of income.

Our first stop on Thursday morning was a small winery on the ourskirts of Geurnica. Itsasmendi produces a high quality white wine from a grape we can neither spell or pronounce that is grown in this area of Spain.  We may have found our favorite "breakfast wine".  Nearby is the Roija region of Spain. It is famous for it's roija red wines. Much like chiant's in Italy, a roija must come from this region to be truly considered a roija. We sampled a very nice roija at our first get together meeting at our hotel.

Guernica, Spain became famous in the 1930's  due a spectacular painting by Pablo Picasso. In the lead up to a large 1935 art exhibition in Paris the democratic government of Spain, under siege from Franco's forces, felt the need to bring to the world's attention the danger it was in. They commissioned Picasso at the princely sum of $3000 for a painting for this exhibition which he accepted. While considering ideas for this painting, Guernica was heavily damaged by Franco bombing. The bombing coalesced his thinking resulting in his remarkable painting, Guernica. The plan was to bring the painting back to Madrid at the end of the civil war.  However, when Franco became the dictator Guernica was sent to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.  When the Franco government was overthrown in 1975, the newly installed democracy quickly moved to have the painting returned.  MOMA responded that they did not know where the painting was.  Three years later, after intense negotiations, MOMA suddenly discovered the painting in the basement of the museum rolled up very tightly. Guernica was returned to Spain in this rolled up condition and when it was unrolled it was found to be badly damaged.  Restoration work was unable to totally restore the painting to its original condition so it was ultimately hung in the Queen Sofia Gallery in Madirid in this damaged condition, Despite many requests from the most famous art galleries in the world, Guernica has not left Madrid. We saw an outside mural reproduction of Picasso's work in Guernica.  We also saw the original in Madriid  a few years ago.  Guernica was one of the earliest democracies in Europe. The first Congress met under a large oak tree. The next year they met again under the same tree, thus a tradition was born.  When the first Congress building was  constructed, the original oak tree was moved to a protected position near that first building.  When it was obvious the original tree was going to die an acorn from that tree was planted and nurtured to replace the original. This practice has continued to the present day so the oak tree that stands today outside of the Parliament Building can trace it's linage to the original of 1000 years ago. A large meeting building that stands next to the Congress building today features a spectacular glass ceiling, the most prominent feature being a large oak tree.

We traveled from Guernica to a picturesque seaside village for lunch. The lunch itself was not memorable but we very much enjoyed the opprotunity to get to know some of our fellow travelers a bit better.  Our return trip to Bilbao was a scenic drive along the coast. We stopped along the way at a turn off for a particularly stunning view.  The main feature was a small island a very short distance off the coast.  A church sat atop the island.  Our tour guide explained a bit of the history of this island and closed by saying the island had been featured in several episodes of the TV program, "Game of Thrones," He went on to say that the church was not seen in the episodes. A computer generated castle was superimposed where the church stands. Still, it caused thousands of fans to flock to the site.  There is a small man-made walk way built for hikers to visit the island.  It is a very long hike over rugged terrian.  For the safety of the hikers and the environment, the government stepped in and limited the number of hikers each day to just 500.  There is a very involved procedure for booking a time slot for a hike. Not having ever watch Game of Thrones, we were only impressed by the natural beautiy of the island.  It was a wonderful, but exhausting first day of our trip.

November 8, 2025

Today we stayed in Bilbao. We started with a brief bus trip around the new part of Bilbao. It was mildly interesting.  The real highlight of the day was a visit to the Guggenhiem Museam. The archetecture of the building is stunningly modern. Frank Ghry was the archetech and has always had a facination with titanium, but because of its expense was never able to use it until this building.  The Museum sits next to a river that is at this location actually and estuary of the Atlantic Ocean so is very salty.  That fact combined with the high rain fall Bilbao experiences would lead to the quick corrosion of a stainless steel shell.  Ghry convinced the Museum it would be cheaper in the long run to start with titanium, which is corrosive resistant,  then to have to replace the stainless steel shell every five years.  The original budget for the building was 68 billion dollars.  With the titanium shell it shot up to 96 billion dollars.  Ghry's fascination with titanium is due to the fact the metal changes color based on the angle at which the sun hits the surface. There were paintings by Rothko, Lichtenstein, and Worhol along with a number of artists we never heard of.  There was a room of huge metal sculptures that were designed to be walked through. They were cleverly designed to physically throw you off balance as you entered and left the sculpture, There was one painting that was a performance piece. A large blank canvas was layed out on the floor and then two naked women were covered in blue paint and then moved about on the canvas. There were nearby pictures of the event.  Tim found the pictures of the event more interesting then the painting itself.  Many of the works showed amazing imagination while others were a bit outlandish. The name Guggenhiem Museum is actually a brand name. The Museum in Bibao actually pay a fee to the Guggenhiem Foundation every 20 years for the name. There are actually 3 Guggenhiem Museums around the world.  The other two are in New York City and Venice, Italy.  We are proud to claim having visited all three.

The final stop of the day was a walking tour of  the Old Town area of Bilbao. We walked about the original three main streets.  They were very similiar to the Old Town sections of other large European cities we visited. There were few, if none, of the very upscale named brand shops we see in the newer sections, i.e. tourist sections, of the city. They were the shops that the locals frequent.  These are also the streets where we could sit at an outdoor cafe with a glass of wine people watching. We have enjoyed being in Bilbao. I don't think we had any preceived ideas of what we would see but were in no way disappointed  in being here. Not that we ever are anywhere else in the world.

Tomorrow  we leave to embark on our Viking cruise.  There will be a three hour stop in San Sebastian,  Spain on the way. Our next blog post will be from aboard our ship in France.  We understand it is to snow in Michigan tomorrow. We have had lots of precipitation the last two days, but it doesn't need to be shoveled.