I was excited to go see the Old Town today. I usually can find lots of interesting things to take photos.
Here in Bilbao, the Uber drivers seem to have their act together. They all seem to drive black Toyotas - most say "Uber" on the drivers side. And there seems to be only one drop off location at any given tourist destination where everyone gets dropped off and/or picked up. Our drop off for the Old Town was next to the St Nicholas church. What is shown above is the entrance to the most famous plaza of Bilbao Old Town, Plaza Nueva.
I left my cheap U.S. sunglasses which I have had for 5-8 years in our Uber yesterday. The ear pieces on them have been loose for years and yet they never break. So sad to see them go this way! I had asked at a tourist store where to find sun glasses. At first the person manning the store thought I meant - do they sell sun glasses here. Once she understood what I was asking she couldn't have been more helpful. She said - bla bla bla which I understood to mean go 2 blocks to the left and then turn left and go a little ways and you will find them. Of course there were a lot more words - which could have meant - don't go to the first store - the Farmicia because they will be too expensive go further on and get cheaper ones. I went to the Farmicia and paid $30 for a pair of sun glasses that promises to protect my eyes from any kind of UV ray there is. So maybe its worth it! The weirdest thing was when I tried to look through the view finder of my camera - all I could see was a big blob of a plus sign. I have to take off my sun glasses in order to see what I want to take a photo of? This is really strange.
Now we are in the square. I have tried to avoid all of the tourist groups crowded around someone who is explaining the history of this plaza.
Back out of the plaza to St Nicholas Church.
Inside St Nicholas Church.
Across the street is a park with this bandstand.
Back along the street across from the park I saw the building below with this statue on top.
This is the renown Teatro Arriaga, built in 1890, Bilbao's main venue for Theatre and music.
There are bakeries and/or coffee places that sell sweets all over the place. This one was interesting as it advertised "American Cookies!"
Well - this is a weird thing. It appears to be a Mexican import of some sort of ice cream made with pineapple and nuts. I thought it was some store named after me!
Then I saw this store. How Weird is this - a large figure of someone pulling their pants down. Turns out it is a store that sells Los Caganers. There a ton of small figurines that you can buy that show different figures in the act of defecation. They are to be placed in a Nativity scene. They are popular all over northern Spain.
The next window over - sorry about the bad lighting.
Our next goal was to see the local Cathedral. We apparently walked around the back of the cathedral and thought maybe the only good pictures were these reflections of the cathedral.
We passed some stores.
And finally made it to the front of the cathedral - only to discover that there was a wedding happening here.
The flower girl seems to be telling the young groomsman what to expect.
Finally the bride gets out of the white car.
And they proceed into the Cathedral.
Now that the crowd has finally broken up I can get a photo of the cathedral - but we can't go in.
The front of the food market.
So we head to the food market. Across the way we had stopped at one of the coffee/sweet cafes. Michael had coffee and cheesecake and I had the above sweet with cream inside along with a hot chocolate. It was half way between the hot chocolate you get in the U.S. which is quite watery and the thick chocolate you get when you order hot chocolate and churros in Spain.
Then on to the food market. A long section of it had a lot of windows with reflections. We did not actually go into the food market. I have seen too many of them to find them of interest - and so seems to be the case with Michael. This is supposedly the largest covered market in Europe - so maybe we should not have avoided it.
Still across the street from the food market - we noticed that the covered walkway had art on the ceiling.
Another church - we decided to go in.
From the entrance to the church - a photo of the side entrance to the food market.
Up the steps - but before you enter the church. Michael walked in and started taking photos. I got stopped by a women who insisted that I pay. Another guest tried to explain you could get a ticket for 3 churches and get an audio guide. But we had been in a couple of churches with no pay requirements so I was confused. I finally said I would get my husband and we would leave. But she kept insisting I needed to pay. As we were leaving - she said to me - you can come back tomorrow morning when there is mass and get in free. But we just left. We have been is so many churches much more spectacular and not had to pay - so we definitely would not pay to see this church - hey we are jaded.
Outside of the church.
Along the river next to the church.
This bridge behind the church doesn't look like much of anything. It was built in 1318 and for a long time was the only bridge in the city over the river Nervion. There is much history here.
A close up of the two lions on the bridge.
At this point I realized how tired I was. We went to a bench to sit down. There were many black salesmen selling t-shirts. They had them laid out on sheets or blankets which they could quickly roll up and move on. As we sat on the bench we notice all of them were rolling up their merchandise and quickly moved out of the area. Shortly after - two policemen showed up. After a short time the policeman moved on. And back came the t-shirt salesman. An as we made our way back out of the Old town to the Church of St. Nicholas to be picked up - there they were again - setting up their wares.
Today Michael and I both realized how exhausted we are. I especially am not used to doing much walking and my legs really ache. After 9 weeks of waiting for my toes to heal and getting the message from my podiatrist that they had not healed and I needed to STAY OFF YOUR FEET! I got the message so for 4 weeks I did nothing. I know I need to Eaze into things - but its hard when my mo is to go full force when we travel! Sigh! It's just hard.
Tomorrow we will drive to Madrid were we will have about 3 days of time with family. My niece RM and Granddaughter Jojo who live in Madrid and daughter Alexis who will fly in from Sweden. After that we will drive on to spend a month in El Campello - where we will have more family, but also time alone.
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