Basque Country (Bilbao, San Sebastian)

We spent this past weekend touring Basque Country in Northern Spain with a couple friends down from London.  The area is world renowned for their art and food.  Learning from our previous trip in Spain, we decided to take advantage of the train system in order to have a more relaxing trip.

Bilbao is a very calm city compared to Barcelona. One of our main activities in Bilbao was visiting the Guggenheim Museum. We really enjoyed not only the art, but actually seeing the building itself since we had just recently stayed in a hotel designed by the same architect.  The museum definitely had art that made you think.  Jolene actually got lost in one piece.  I personally like the stuff that doesn't require thinking. For example, the giant puppy made of flowers in front of the museum.  After the museum we met up with some friends and enjoyed some late night tapas and wine which lasted long into the night, making me a very calm/quiet navigator the next day 

as we travelled to San Sebastian.

In San Sebastian, we went on a two day "ir de pintxos" which is basically a pub crawl in the Basque Country with a focus on their tapas while sneaking in their cider, beer, and wine along the way. I definitely lost track of the many places we sampled throughout the city.  Once we felt we tasted just about everything, we decided to use some of our free time to hike up one of the mountains on the side of town and even visit one of their famous churches (The Good Shepard).