Planes, trains, automobiles and buses. Today was our one and only bus day and like all of our public transport experiences here in Spain it was a good one.

Taking a little over an hour to get here we arrived into the centre of town at the bus station and then caught an Uber to our hotel. It’s quite wet here which is okay as we’ve booked to go to the Guggenheim Museum at 4.00pm. At the same time Bilbao is playing football against Getafe which I thought would have been great to go to, if it wasn’t raining and we hadn’t already pre purchased tickets. Everyone is in their red and white football gear and there are flags flying from shops as we pass them by. As is sometimes without football, as I was leaving the Guggenheim I came across the crowds leaving the game without those winning supporter faces, it was a nil all game. This of course meant that my level of disappointment was significantly diminished.

And I do now have a new all time favourite museum, the Guggenheim Bilbao has well and truly captured my heart. I could have stayed for hours and hours but sadly it closed at 7.00pm. There were so many elements to love, the design of the building, the way the exhibitions were set up, as well as the exhibits themselves.

Let’s start with the building it was designed by Frank Gehry, a Canadian architect. We didn’t get to see the museum by night with its lights twinkling unfortunately, I can only imagine how it looks sitting by the Nervion River which winds it’s way through the city.

Once I got the hang of the audio guide I was off and racing (it did take me a little while but it’s excellent) there is so much to see and some of the collections here took me completely by surprise.

The first exhibition that I went through was that of an American artist Richard Serra. Serra is best known for his large scale abstract steel sculptures. The audio guide had me completely engaged and I found myself going through these sculptures like I was a little girl again – it was amazing. The people around me where just as much in awe, Dave saw one girl twirling when she got into the middle of one of them, In some of them (there are eight structures) as the walls came closer I felt a little disoriented and maybe even slightly claustrophobic but not enough to be worried, it felt like the steel was moving. It was a most unusual experience and I loved it, in fact it had me almost mesmerised.

The next exhibition was Oskar Kokoschka a Venetian painter, poet and playwright born in 1886 who died in 1980. His exhibition was titled “A rebel from Vienna “. He said of himself

“I am an expressionist because I do not know how to do anything other than express life.”

There were so many wonderful pieces for me to choose from here are but a few.

Anschluss- Alice in Wonderland (1942) .

At the time of creating this political painting Kokoschka was in exile in England. The burning city in the background of the painting is his beloved Austria, with Alice symbolising truth standing naked at the front behind barbed wire. Behind her are three wise monkeys hear no evil (England), see no evil (Germany) and speak no evil (France). This is a reference to the role each of these nations played in deciding the fate of Austria. On the left of the painting you can see a woman holding a baby wearing a gas mask – she is looking at Alice. As the story of this painting was narrated it was difficult not to feel moved.

The were a number of other artists who I loved but Lynette Yiadom-Boakye really jumped out at me. She is a British artist and writer born in London 1977 and the real cool thing (apart from her art work of course) was that you could download a Spotify playlist to take you around her exhibition. Nothing quite like grooving around an exhibition listening to Prince, Miles Davis, Bill Withers and Stevie Wonder. Here are some of her paintings that I loved most.

And a little bit of Andy Warhol to finish it off.

Tonight we had dinner at a fantastic restaurant called Basquery were we enjoyed pintox with a local beer, yummo! If you are coming to Bilbao make sure you check it out.

Tomorrow another day of exploring this lovely city of approximately 344,000 people.