This morning we are up and at ’em, as we have things to see and a car to drop off, so we forgo breakfast and hit the road to a “quaint” seaside village…according to the hotel manager.

About an hour later we reached this quaint village thinking it would be an old fishing town full of shanties and sea salts, all terracotta and rust.

But, non.

It was a modern(ish) holiday destination with a nice beach and plenty of high rise apartment blocks. More Torquay than Wye River!

Anyhow, we parked and found a tiny cafe with fresh baked goodies, and a lovely Spanish lady with no English to compliment our no Spanish. First time we’ve encountered this, we’ve been spoilt till now, but no problem, lots of waving of hands and smiles all round and we had breakfast in front of us.

Goodbye ‘village’, next stop Bilbao and the Guggenheim Museum.

Our initial plan was to spend time just looking around the outside of what is a spectacular building, as time was pressing, but when will we be back? So in we go….and thank goodness we did.

It is unbelievably good, maybe even better!!

The space itself is huge, voluminous indeed. Vast rooms with minimal art so as to highlight each piece.

Spread over three enormous levels only two were open, and the majority was dedicated to the artist, Jeff Koons.

I must confess I’d never heard of Jeff Koons, neither had Rachael, but we won’t forget him any time soon.

Just fantastic….look him up!

Sort of pop art, but not like Andy Warhol and painted soup cans, a bit surrealism and a whole heap of fun.

His sculptures made to look like balloons, some like those balloon animals clowns make, are in fact very intricate metal works of art.

The attention to detail is amazing, incredible! Below is an image from his website which may help explain. No photos allowed inside the gallery.

Loved it!

We have been lucky enough to go to a few of the leading galleries now, including the Louvre, Prado and Mona but this was the most fun we have had at an art gallery.

It’s no wonder the Guggenheim name is so well regarded.

Enough gushing….off to San Sebastián.

Managed to get a park right out the front of our hotel, dropped off our bags and got rid of the car.

Time to explore before our pinxtos (tapas) tour tonight.

You know when you just get a vibe about a place almost straight away…San Sebastián is going to be wicked!

Great architecture, beautiful beach, nice people, bars everywhere!

We met our tour group at the outrageous time of 6.30pm!

Twelve of us plus our guide, Vicki, headed into the old town on a pinxtos expedition.

San Sebastián is filled with bars selling these pinxtos, most displayed on the bar, and accompanied by a glass of something wet!

The array of food is incredible, from garlic prawns to beef cheek, anchovies with pickled peppers and olives, smoked cod, tenderloin steak, fried peppers, cheese risotto, beef hamburgers, etc, etc.

All in bite sized portions.

All delicious!

We went through five bars sampling both pinxtos and specialty beverages from beer to cider, white and red wine, and Pedro Ximemez (Rachael’s favourite “church wine”).

Once the tour was done we headed to another bar, ‘coz we could!!

A couple more drinks, including a nightcap Negroni, which is actually an aperitive, but ‘what the heck!’

Huge day, great day!

San Sebastián is crap…..don’t bother visiting….you’d hate it?😉