A two-minute walk from our room in an apartment in Bilbao, northwest Spain, took us back to the Guggenheim Bilbao, which Steven and I first visited in the fall of 2018. On this visit, we were only in the city for two nights before heading to San Sebastian in the heart of Spanish Basque Country, and then meeting friends who live in a charming village in France's Basque Country.
Steven and I don't normally gravitate to modern art museums, but the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Bilbao drew us more for its 21st-century architecture than its collection. The atrium was the museum's heart, inviting guests into the sensual curves of its walls on every level.
Notice the sheets of glass that drew our eyes upward and the lack of any straight lines except for the floor. Little wonder that the museum received so many accolades for its innovative design.
As Jenny Holzer's electronic LED sign, titled Installation for Bilbao, was part of the museum's original collection, we recalled seeing it on our previous visit.
Gehry designed the vast first floor for often huge modern art installations. One permanent work we remembered admiring was Matter of Time, monumental metal walls of weathered steel that Richard Serra designed to be walked through and among. Who could imagine ever dismantling this sculpture?!
Serra was one of the first artists to revolutionize sculpture from a self-contained object to an "experience of space and perception in which the viewer actively participates in creating meaning."
Stepping out onto the riverside terrace, before the smoke from employees taking a cigarette break turned me off, I took just a moment to look at Wish Tree, a participatory work created by performance artist Yoko Ono. The live olive tree planted in soil inside a wooden pot was part of a series she began in 1996, inspired by the Japanese tradition of hanging prayers.
I liked the view from an upper gallery of Serra's 'sculpture' and the curvaceous lines in the second shot.
A large gallery space was given to exhibit works by Jasper Johns, an American painter, sculptor, draftsman, and printmaker. Considered a central figure in the development of American postwar art, Johns, born in 1930, is best known for painting iconic, two-dimensional images of familiar everyday symbols, most notably American flags.
His map of the US:
Jones' series of crosshatchings was inspired by a pattern decorating a polished stone found in a South African cave, which some consider the oldest known artwork. His first abstract works explored how two-dimensional painting could represent the third dimension. Some associate the crosshatch pattern with the 74 arms with which Tibetan deity Samvara locks in sexual embrace with 12-armed Shakti in a 17th-century Tantric Nepalese painting. Or the pattern may also be linked to the bedspread pattern in Self Portrait Between the Clock and the Bed by Edvard Munch. Take your pick!
Works by other artists in other galleries:
Erwin Wurm, an Austrian artist, used painted metal in 2000 to create Box Man.
Yet another angle of Matter of Time:
As we walked out to look at some of the exterior works, we admired how the 'water garden' allowed the river to symbolically lap the base of the building. I don't think I'm speaking out of turn, but we both preferred the Guggenheim Museum's innovative style to its new exhibitions on our return visit.
We'd seen this mural from inside the museum shortly before.
The four bronze statues, Las Sirgueras or The Rope Girls, by artist Dora Salazar, honored sirgueras, working-class women of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who toiled along the riverbanks pulling heavy cargo boats and barges using thick ropes or sirgas.
Walking along the riverbank beyond the museum, we came to the white, harp-shaped pedestrian Zubizuri Bridge, designed by Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava.
A little further, the attractive Puente Del Arenal linked the new Bilbao to Old Town or Casco Viejo. As we explored downtown Bilbao on our previous visit, we were curious to visit its old town this time.
Our first glimpse in Old Town was the Arriaga Theatre, the historic neo-Baroque opera house that opened in 1890 and was dedicated to Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga, a celebrated 19th-century Bilbao-born composer known as the "Spanish Mozart."
What a pleasure to get off the busy streets and meander down the narrow, car-free lanes!
We initially thought this was the Santiago Cathedral, but then realized it was the Church of St. Nicholas, dedicated to the local sailors' community. What a shame the day was so gloomy, as the monumental church exterior was quite delightful.
As Bilabo's weather is wetter than in many parts of Spain, the small balconies climbing the outside walls of buildings were glassed in. They reminded me of those we saw in Malta two years ago.
Apart from the Guggenheim, the city's centerpiece was the 14th-century Gothic Cathedral, regarded as having the best Basque Gothic exterior. After being engulfed in flames in 1374, it expanded over the centuries, despite fires and floods. It was dedicated to the apostle James because it was a transit point for pilgrims following one of the Camino de Santiago routes.
The portico:
The church had a central nave and two aisles with fifteen historic peripheral chapels lining the latter. Seven columns supported the church, reflecting the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. The round altar was designed for a more communal celebration.
The Chapel of the Pillar, dedicated in 1725, portrayed St. James at her feet.
Lina: You know I said a prayer for Violet at the Chapel of the Virgin of Mount Carmel. For everyone else, we attended Our Lady of Mount Carmel Elementary School in Ottawa.
I was glad we had looked up and noticed the lovely 19th-century stained-glass window above the organ.
Nineteenth-century monstrances were on display in the Sacristy.
The 16th-century cloister was the only remaining Gothic Basque cloister in the Basque Country, which spans four provinces in Spain and three provinces in France. As the cathedral was originally just a parish church, it was rare for one to have a cloister.
The small square or Plazuela de Santiago next to the Santiago Cathedral:
Ever since Bilbao was founded in 1300, there has been a market. As part of the city's revitalization project, the 1929 Mercado La Ribera reopened in 2011 to much fanfare.
On the top floor was a series of Art Deco stained-glass panels. The city's coat of arms was depicted with two wolves.
As our cathedral admission provided free access to San Anton Church next to the market, we took advantage of the two-fer! The 15th-century Gothic-style church was built over the ruins of an old palace and was also represented in the city's coat of arms.
I liked the sheer simplicity of its interior, particularly after the profusion of images in the previous churches we'd visited in Bilbao.
Just behind the church was a bridge of the same name.
The area around the Portal de Zamudio Kalea, situated in Bilbao’s historic center, marked the boundary of the original medieval town and its early defensive gates facing the Txorierri valley.
The Basque Museum, or Euskal Museoa in Basque, was located in a former 16th-century Jesuit convent. Founded in 1917, the museum had the foresight to research, collect, conserve, interpret, and exhibit the Basque people's historical heritage.
The main sight in the 17th-century cloister, which was the centerpiece of the Jesuit college, was the Iron Age stone animal figure called El Mikeldi. You're probably not the only one to know when that period was. I checked and learned it followed the Stone Age and the Bronze Age, emerging around 1200 BCE.
I found it staggering that anything from that ancient period was still in such remarkable condition!
Unfortunately, there was scant information about the museum's objects, so we were left to admire the museum's physical setting more than its collection.
The map showed that many Basque people left their homes and emigrated to the far corners of the globe. I found independently that Basque migration to the United States accelerated sharply during the mid-to-late 19th century, driven by the California Gold Rush of 1849, political upheaval in Europe, and strict land laws concerning inheritance.
A real downside about the museum was its lack of signage in any language other than Euskara or Spanish. But using AI, I determined that Basque Stone Lifting began as daily work and tests of strength in Basque farmyards and quarries, where workers competed to show power to the community. During the 20th century, the weights and shapes of the stones were standardized. What began as a display of labor and wagers has transformed into an organized rural sport featured in exhibitions and official championships across the Basque Country.
Basque fiestas play an important role in preserving their unique cultural heritage, including the regional language, music, and traditions from generation to generation.
The museum had fragments of two oak trees from Guernica, the historic, political, and spiritual heart of the Basque Country. For centuries, Basque leaders and regional representatives met beneath the historic Tree of Guernica to take oaths, uphold traditional Basque laws, and declare regional autonomy. In 2018, we made a point of stopping before traveling onward to Bilbao, just 35km away. The metaphorical oak tree represented the museum's materials: the roots, the Basque language; the trunk; and the leaves, intangible heritage.
Guernica assumed greater importance to the Basque people as a symbol of tragedy and resistance following its bombing in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War by Nazi German and Italian fascist warplanes. Roughly seventy percent of the town was destroyed, killing hundreds of civilians. We saw a copy of Pablo Picasso's immortalization of the destruction in his iconic, monochromatic mural of Guernica, considered the most moving and powerful anti-war painting in history. The original masterpiece, on display in Madrid, helped to turn the town into a lasting worldwide symbol of anti-war protest, civilian suffering, and resilience against tyranny.
Believe me, the two bathroom signs appeared identical, so I used the handicapped one instead of using the wrong one!
You know you're in Basque Country when you see supersized Jamón Ibérico or Iberico hams!
Due to water issues, the large Plaza de la Nueva was blocked off.
Across the river from Old Town was the 1902 Bilbao-Concordia Railway Station with its magnificent Modernist Art Nouveau design.
I'll leave you with a sunset shot as we returned to our room by tram, and another lovely doorway.
If you're interested in reading about our first visit to Bilbao, here's a link to my post from 2018:
Next post: San Sebastian and its Pinxtos!
Posted on October 18th, 2026, from Nice, France, after a wonderful, if more hectic than we imagined, month-long drive across southern France! Please take care of yourself and your loved ones.
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