bilbao - fresh out of the tourism womb
just quickly, the lack of posting in poitiers was because i didn't really feel up to writing about anything - was enough of an effort to keep up conversation with my mates because my health was quite average. still managed to make a birthday out of the 19th and we went out to a lovely poitiers speciality french cuisine restaurant called 'cafe d'absynthe' (i believe - my lack of memory has nothing to do with the shot absinthe we consumed in birthday celebrations... nor does it have anything to do with the disgusting mouthwash flavoured drink the bartender at the pilory pourted gratis for me....). i thouroughly enjoyed my meal despite having to leave the table to clear my head every 5 minutes and i think the snails, which were drenched in garlic and oil, went some way to putting my cold on the backfoot. nothing like a bit of herbal medicine and some garden animals. our nights in the pretty and very lively student town of poitiers were spent in fine style at the barry abode - where we were generously accomodated in liams quater of the communal household. the 3 story appartment building houses 9 other students of various nationalities so french is generally spoken out of necessity over dinner in the 'dining room' (otherwise used as the central stairwell).
anyway i am now writing from an extremely well priced internet cafe situated inside a subway "restaurant" in the lovely, sunny, warm and very clean town of bilbao. at 80cents an hour i'll sit almost anywhere... we had some drama's on our travels and missed our very first train of the trip: not too shabby and thankfully we had liams impeccable french to help us exchange our ticket, which the french rail system doesn't mind doing even if you miss your booking. we originally intended to go to biarritz in the south coast, before ducking into spain but decided that the larger town of bayonne had more chances of bus-routes into spain, which wasn't a bad move because as we passed through biarritz on the bus later that evening it seemed to be the kind of place to go only if you can afford to buy a very large chateau on the coast. bayonne was a nice little find and we spent the afternoon wandering the streets and eating cheap bree on the footsteps of the cathedral while the lovely girls at the tourist desk looked after our bags (which feel significantly heavier than they were before we spent 2 weeks lazing around in paris).
our latenight arrival in bilbao was not in the slightest bit disastrous; infact we were welcomed to spanish late-night culture as we walked down the streets. the roar from the football stadium indicated a win for the local soccer team; which was confirmed as i watched 50% of the game as i walked pasted the windows of the hundreds of cafe's and bars which had their sets tuned in... spain has inadvertantly turned into a place to practice my tourist italian in because practically no-one speaks english here in bilbao, mind you at 11pm at night it would have been nice to get some english instructions as to how to find our hotel. luckily the 5star hotel had an english speaking concierge who pointed us in the right direction (those guys know everything). we made use of the quite obviously brank-spanking metro line along with most of the other inhabitants of bilbao returning home from the stadium in their red and white jerseys, and finally found our pension in the heart of the old part of town. a tidy little 4th-story room with balcony was showed to us by a lovely little spanish lady and it was a great relief to lose the packs and head out for some late night food; which materialised in the form of some suprisingly good chinese (don't worry we'll have tapas tonight). incidentally the asian food in asia so far has been absolute trash, or so it has looked: baymarie style pre-cooked gluggy crap. this place was a tiptop made-to-order authentic chinese restaurant with cheesy muzac and bad wallpaper. the food was fantastic though and the best value-for-volume/taste meal i've bought in the west so far.
we spent the day today walking the sunny and clean streets of this beautiful city - and compared to france the weather is incredible. i'm back into shorts and one of those dodgy electronic temperature signs said it was 27 degrees... so it's at least 25 which aint bad for late october in the northern hemisphere. one of the tourist highlights, aside from the impeccable efficiency of the public transport system, is the bilbao guggenheim museum; an incredibly designed contemporary museum made from titanium and glass. it is impossible to describe the design without sounding like an art-critic wanker so i'll leave it up to the photos which will be posted at a later date, but think of the sydney opera house in terms of unusual and then add about 30 years of modern technology and design evolution and you'll be on the way. due to time restrictions and our desire to stay outside in the sun we didn't see any of the exhibitions inside, which are apparently quite good and there is some permanent picasso and kandinki in there but the world was a more spectacular option so we put some km and a fair bit of the city streets behind us. my new shoes are 100% worn-in and will be further ground down when we arrive in salamanca at 1am tonight and attempt the 1.2km walk to the hostel with our packs...
more from there
anyway i am now writing from an extremely well priced internet cafe situated inside a subway "restaurant" in the lovely, sunny, warm and very clean town of bilbao. at 80cents an hour i'll sit almost anywhere... we had some drama's on our travels and missed our very first train of the trip: not too shabby and thankfully we had liams impeccable french to help us exchange our ticket, which the french rail system doesn't mind doing even if you miss your booking. we originally intended to go to biarritz in the south coast, before ducking into spain but decided that the larger town of bayonne had more chances of bus-routes into spain, which wasn't a bad move because as we passed through biarritz on the bus later that evening it seemed to be the kind of place to go only if you can afford to buy a very large chateau on the coast. bayonne was a nice little find and we spent the afternoon wandering the streets and eating cheap bree on the footsteps of the cathedral while the lovely girls at the tourist desk looked after our bags (which feel significantly heavier than they were before we spent 2 weeks lazing around in paris).
our latenight arrival in bilbao was not in the slightest bit disastrous; infact we were welcomed to spanish late-night culture as we walked down the streets. the roar from the football stadium indicated a win for the local soccer team; which was confirmed as i watched 50% of the game as i walked pasted the windows of the hundreds of cafe's and bars which had their sets tuned in... spain has inadvertantly turned into a place to practice my tourist italian in because practically no-one speaks english here in bilbao, mind you at 11pm at night it would have been nice to get some english instructions as to how to find our hotel. luckily the 5star hotel had an english speaking concierge who pointed us in the right direction (those guys know everything). we made use of the quite obviously brank-spanking metro line along with most of the other inhabitants of bilbao returning home from the stadium in their red and white jerseys, and finally found our pension in the heart of the old part of town. a tidy little 4th-story room with balcony was showed to us by a lovely little spanish lady and it was a great relief to lose the packs and head out for some late night food; which materialised in the form of some suprisingly good chinese (don't worry we'll have tapas tonight). incidentally the asian food in asia so far has been absolute trash, or so it has looked: baymarie style pre-cooked gluggy crap. this place was a tiptop made-to-order authentic chinese restaurant with cheesy muzac and bad wallpaper. the food was fantastic though and the best value-for-volume/taste meal i've bought in the west so far.
we spent the day today walking the sunny and clean streets of this beautiful city - and compared to france the weather is incredible. i'm back into shorts and one of those dodgy electronic temperature signs said it was 27 degrees... so it's at least 25 which aint bad for late october in the northern hemisphere. one of the tourist highlights, aside from the impeccable efficiency of the public transport system, is the bilbao guggenheim museum; an incredibly designed contemporary museum made from titanium and glass. it is impossible to describe the design without sounding like an art-critic wanker so i'll leave it up to the photos which will be posted at a later date, but think of the sydney opera house in terms of unusual and then add about 30 years of modern technology and design evolution and you'll be on the way. due to time restrictions and our desire to stay outside in the sun we didn't see any of the exhibitions inside, which are apparently quite good and there is some permanent picasso and kandinki in there but the world was a more spectacular option so we put some km and a fair bit of the city streets behind us. my new shoes are 100% worn-in and will be further ground down when we arrive in salamanca at 1am tonight and attempt the 1.2km walk to the hostel with our packs...
more from there
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