On the road to Barcelona (+more Picos)

First, let's have a look at a few of Anita's pictures from the Picos / Casa La Xerra.

The flock of sheep that we rumbled on the way to the middle of nowhere destination that the iPhone picked.

Milo, the cute puppy, while he's waiting patiently at the door for somebody to throw him some scraps. He also likes to chase balls as if his life depended on it.

Our amazing breakfast.

Now. Continuing where we left off in the last entry, we headed to cave, Cueva de Tito Bustillo. We joined the tour group in the nick of time as they headed into the cave. As we headed into the bowels of the earth, it dawned on us that nobody on the tour, including the guide, spoke a word of English. We did glean a little bit: the guide showed everyone how to view the 25k year old paintings from various different angles, such that the relief allowed various different images to emerge. The cave walls were not flat like a usual canvas and the prehistoric people took advantage of that. There were also big painted stalagmites -- some of the earliest known phallic symbols present in the cave.

On we went to Bilbao. I've mentioned the roadways before and and Anita had a picture of a viaduct that I'll include now. Pretty serious infrastructure. No wonder Spain is doing almost as badly as Greece these days...

Viaduct going up in N. Spain

We got there and parked in "libre" parking. I looked up this word and it means "free". Great! Well, I had my doubts... We walked out to see the main attraction in Bilbao: the Guggenheim Museum which was designed by the famous starchitect (star architect), Frank Gehry. Surrounding the Museum itself are various cool pieces of artwork.

Anita with a flower dog

A scary spider outside the Museum

Anita and I with the Guggenheim in the background

We basically got thrown out when I started photographing the inside of the building which is against the rules (apparently .. hey, I can't read Spanish). Arriving at our car, we realized that, indeed, "libre" didn't mean "free". It meant "available" .. but it was only a few Euros.

Having knocked out the Guggenheim by late afternoon, we headed on to Pamplona, a city about 1/3 the way to Barcelona from Bilbao. From Pamplona, we'd only have another 4 or 5 hrs driving to reach Barcelona. The guidebook said that Pamplona was kind of a sleepy little town. So we picked a cheap hotel in the middle of the city. Once we arrived, we realized that the guidebook had lied. It was Saturday night and Pamplona was happening. This wasn't what we needed that particular Saturday night. After being stuck in a people-jam (and people are harder to rumble than sheep) for 15+ minutes, and hunting for a parking spot for half an hour, we managed to bring our little Seat (the car make as you'll recall) to a halt. Then we headed into the thick of things to look at the cheap hotel. Well, it turns out that it was too cheap. Like Prabaker said in Shantaram, one can find "a cheap hotel, a very cheap hotel, a too much cheap hotel, and even such a cheap hotel that nobody in a right minds is ever staying there also." With its grungy single bed, shared bathrooms, and flophouse appearance, this was one of the latter. We went back and stayed at a 75 Euro/night place near where we'd parked. We also got a fine dinner at a place I noticed right by the parking spot we found. For the first time in Spain, I think, the service was fantastic. There was this 18 year old kid who was a service enthusiast and treated us very well. We hit the sack happy that night if a little wasted.

The next morning, we woke up and got breakfast at a cafe where Ernest Hemingway used to write in the main Plaza in Pamplona. In his book, The Sun Also Rises, an annual Pamplona fiesta is the backdrop. After breakfast, on we went. Our next (brief) stop before reaching Barcelona would be Zaragoza, named after Caesar Augusta. Say Caesar Augusta really fast with a Spanish accent and you hear "zaragoza"... ¡hasta luego!