The train, the rain, the brain and Spain

Wednesday, February 27
At long last, a sunny day, 13 degrees C, not a cloud in the sky. This is a contrast to Monday morning when we woke to snow.

 

Yep, that's SNOW!

 This made me think about how much it has rained over the past month. Since it hasn't rained in Santa Cruz since we left, we must have brought the central California coast rain with us to Bilbao. People in Bilbao and San Sebastian-Donostia say it's never rained rained this much. There was 30+ days straight of rain. So you can believe that when it's sunny, we get outside.

The Guggenheim in the sun

 Like we did the day we took the Euskotren to Getxo, a 30 minute ride. A short walk from the metro, we found a wide, paved path that ran for miles along the cliffs. Along with throngs of Spaniards, we unzipped our jackets, took off our scarves, and started strolling.

walkway

toy boat, toy boat, toy boat

check out the windmills

 The air was brisk and clean and the view was impressive. The sailboats looked so small I was sure I was watching a radio-controlled fleet of miniature yachts. Ha! They were Lasers! What I thought were 24 ft boats were at least 50 ft. You could see the mouth of the Rio Nervion with it's commercial dock and smallish islands stretching away to the west. We walked an hour and a half or more and found this beautiful, wild beach with surfers. The path stretched up and up and there were hang-gliders dotting the sky.

 We also had a spectacular sunny day when we visited Guernika. This is the town immortalized by Pablo Picasso in the moving piece of the same name ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_%28painting%29) and is infamous for the Franco-sanctioned German Condor Legion bombardment that killed approximately 250 civilians during the Spanish Civil War.

ah, not the REAL one!

 However, it's been an important town to the Basque people for hundreds of years, because it's one of the three places in the Pais Vasco where each Spanish monarch came and pledged to uphold the Basque laws (different from Spanish laws) and protect the Basque people. The pledge always took place under an oak, and the current oak is a descendent of the 'father' planted in the 14th century.

The town was, ironically, rebuilt by Franco at the end of the Civil War...maybe there was some guilt associated with this, or maybe there should have been. Today, visitors can walk through the Peace Museum (dedicated to defining and preserving peace throughout the world), the Museum of Basque Culture and the Legislative Representatives' Meeting Hall (Casa de Juntas) and, if the day is fine and dry, the Parque de los Pueblos de Europa is a tranquil spot to walk off your menu del día.

Casa de Juntas

beautiful and bucolic

So, if I start complaining about the rain again, feel free to remind me that Bilbao DOES have some nice sunny days!