Bilbao, Spain

Several of the guys I worked with in the US referred to Bilbao as the "armpit of the world" and refused to go there. My thought was that it might be a fun adventure, and even if it was not, I could stand anything for awhile. I found I enjoyed Bilbao and the surrounding area, and ended up staying for seven months.

Bilbao was a working town, with nothing very touristic about it. It had its fair share of tenement buildings, like most big cities at the time.

It had an industrial port on one of the rivers leading into Biscay Bay, which was probably the reason for the city being started here.

Like most big cities in Spain, it has a sizable old-town area. Rita would drive us there so we could walk around and see the sights. We found an old train station which had been converted into a nice fresh market. The bottom level sold fresh fish and meats, and the other 2 levels sold vegetables and flowers. Nearby is San Anton Church, showing its age but still a thing of beauty.

The center of town was nondescript but attractive enough.

There was one really big department store, El Cortes Ingles (the English courts). It had several levels and sold just about everything. People would bring their German Shepherds into the store and nobody minded because they were the most well-behaved dogs we ever saw. Even without a leash, they stayed right by their owner and never strayed. On the top level of the department store were a few small restaurants, good for a quick meal. However, we found so many other restaurants that were excellent that we seldom ate there.

Most other shops in Bilbao were very small, just one narrow room. In Spain the best shops are the small ones. I found a photo shop and was a regular visitor there, turning in about 10 rolls of film each week to be developed. My Spanish was poor but these folks knew their business and I never had any problems. These small shops close for 2-3 hours every afternoon, and close for the day around 5. Even the big shops like El Cortes Ingles close by 8, at the very latest.  

The road we usually used went through one of the main districts and ended at the Statue of Christ The Sacred Heart.

Rita took us everywhere in her little red car. And it was a good thing the car was small because parking was a challenge  It was the same old story about not enough parking spaces for the businesses. Rita's solution was to do something we called “braille’ parking - go forward until she gently bumped the car in front, and backwards until she gently bumped the car behind her. 

It was common to share the road with bicyclists. In the Bilbo region we often saw bicyclists; they were always biking for sport. People did not use bikes to go to work or shopping, as they did in Belgium.