Travelogue, Spanish Basque Country, 2018

     After leaving France for the coast of Spain on the Basque Corniche, we checked into the Maria Cristina Hotel in San Sebastian. Built in 1912, the facade resembled a Belle Epoque palace. We were led to a sumptuous room, recently renovated in grays from slate to fog. In fact, the entire hotel had been renovated in 50 shades, from "greige" (beige with a touch of gray) to thundercloud. A plaque on the door next to us proclaimed it had been Bette Davis' suite while she was in residence. She had actually stayed there just three days before her death. Her photos remained on the walls of the bar and grill room off the lobby.

Hotel Maria Cristina, San Sesbastian, Spain

     San Sebastian is known for three things: its spectacular beaches, its Parto Vieja ("Old Part" of the city), and its food. The international jazz festival in July and international film festival in September call San Sebastian home. We walked around Monte Urgull, the hill that rises abruptly at the edge of the Old City along the peninsula's shore and used toothpicks to spear pinxtos ("haute cuisine in miniature") with olives, green or red peppers, anchovies, pork meatballs, or fried potatoes, displayed on a bar. The bartender tallied them up, along with the Rioja district wines we'd sampled, when we were ready to leave.
     The following day we shopped inside the old walled city and walked the broad promenade above Playa de la Concha, the beach closest to the city with waves less formidable than the eastern Playa de Zurriola, which attracted international surfers. On the far western end of the Gulf of Vizcaya was Playa de Ondarreta, with few amenities. For dinner (10:00 p.m. in the Parto Vieja) we wound down narrow alleys to sit against a newer version of the old city walls in a restaurant where fishermen unloaded their catch in the front and the cooks hustled the catch inside. We ordered some greens and a lobster salad to share. When the "salad" arrived, a mountain of seafood sat on a platter before us: two cooked, split lobsters; steamed mussels and clams; potatoes; tomatoes; whole onions; kernels of corn. At home in Massachusetts we called this meal a "clam boil" or a "lobster bake," depending on whether it's boiled in a steamer pot or cooked over seaweed in a pit. Somehow we managed to devour our "salad."

Views of city of  San Sebastian from amusement park atop Mt. Ulia with Pyrenees in background. Surfers' beach is around promontory to left.

    Basque poet Kirmen Uribe summed up the appeal of his native coastline between San Sebastian and Bilbao: "I'm going to stay here - between the green waves and the blue mountains." We drove west along the coast through Zarautz, a former whale-hunting town with extensive photo museum and huge surfing waves rivaled only in Mundaka, which boasted long rollers and left-curling pipeline. "Hip" sculptures lined the beach promenade in Zarautz. We followed the twisting sea road west through Zumaia, a fortified medieval town with fossils embedded in rock cliffs where artist Ignacio Zuloaga thought the light magical. Next were Ondarrao and Lekeito, the Basque Country's leading fishing ports with major tuna fleets. Finally we headed inland toward Gernika and  Bilbao.
     Picasso made the Basque village Gernika (Basque spelling) famous with his mural representing Spain in the 1937 International Exposition of Arts and Techniques in Modern Life (Paris). In April, 1937, German Luftwaffe planes terror-bombed the Basque town of Gernika at the invitation of General Francisco Franco. Why Gernika? Since medieval times, regional leaders of the Basques had gathered there beneath an ancient oak tree to govern themselves. The fierce independence of the Basques, alone in opposing Franco's bid to overthrow the elected government, offended him. His German allies killed between 200 and 2,000 citizens in the village on a market day but missed the oak.The black and white photos in newspapers reporting the bombing infuriated Picasso, so he painted the mural in stippled grays, evoking those first reports and the dark cloud of war. His mysterious images brought the cause of Spanish suffering before the world. Picasso vowed his mural would never be exhibited in Spain as long as Franco lived. It was returned to Spain from exhibition in N.Y.C.'s Museum of Modern Art following repatriation in 1981.

    

     As recently as the 1980's Bilbao was a steel and ship-building city in decline. Bilbainos thought the government crazy to court a major museum and name an architect to create another landmark (Frank Gehry). But civic audacity paid off. The Guggenheim Bilbao, an "armored beast" in metal, opened in 1997 and jump-started a transformation of the riverfront. A city of 355,000 has now become a laboratory for contemporary architecture. Cesar Pilli created a master plan of walkways, contemporary sculpture, and innovative architecture for the city. 
     The Casco Viejo or "Old Town" is a compact triangle nestled on a bend in the river. Basque identity is the subject of the Museo Vasco, while the Archeological Museum traces the human presence in the region from the arrival of Neanderthal man to the emergence of a coherent Basque region in the Middle Ages. The Museo de Bellas Artes is a gem of a conventional art museum outside Casco Viejo on the Guggenheim side of the River Bilbao..

Entrance to Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain

Jeff Koons'  3-story flower "Puppy" outside 

View of Guggenheim Museum from street

  







Three-story fabric "creature" hanging in atrium








    

     A three-story sculpture of flowers titled "Puppy" by Jeff Koons stands on the esplanade outside the Guggenheim. Three mimes' arms extend from tented blankets to perform to music along the walkway. A two-story iron taranchala titled "Maman" by Louise Bourgeois stands behind the building. 

     Walking through the building necessitates an audio tour, as the museum experience is cutting edge. One is walking through a grand sculpture, certainly with more star quality than many of the exhibits, in my opinion. The artwork is sometimes ten feet to three stories high, floating suspended or sunk in concrete, mind-boggling in conception, weight, and installation. The Chagall exhibit is the only one hanging on the walls. Signage is in Basque, Spanish, and English.

     An exhibit titled "Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World" caused me to flee. I followed Charley into the first room, dominated by two gigantic boxes on platforms. The structures were surrounded by lucite walls that rose above our heads. The contents of the two boxes looked like children's dioramas. Statues of Buddhas sat along a green hillside. Below the hillsides were openings resembling grottos. Lifelike tortoises and a yellow snake with brown markings sat motionless on the hillside beside a pool in the first eight-by-ten-foot box. I turned to the attendant standing along the wall. "Those aren't real, are they?" I said.

     "Oh yes," she answered.

     Just then the tortoise moved one leg. Then the other. Which caused the snake to raise its head and move forward an inch. I moved quickly to the next box, approximately twelve-foot square.

     When I got there, SIX snakes emerged from the opening under the diorama. The yellows, corals, greens, and browns muddled together in a tangle, as the snakes crawled over each other. I ran.