Bilbao

 On Wednesday, September 14th, we had a tour of Bilbao's vibrant, architecturally innovative New Town.

We ended our walk outside Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum.  

We would be back that afternoon to tour the museum, but before then, we had things to do.  Our new walking sticks didn't fit into our luggage, so we needed to buy a gym bag, long enough (63 cm.) to hold them.  To make a long story short, we did that at a sporting goods store in the new town after having empanadas for lunch at a fast-food empanada place.  I paid (23 euros and 24 euros) for another packed bag on our Vueling flights to Barcelona and Geneva.  Our new Nike bag cost 38 euros and is nice.  We put other stuff in there beside the sticks.  I was worried that it might prove clumsy getting on and off trains with it and our other four bags, but I attached it to my four-wheeled roller bag and had no problems.  We used one of our two checked luggage allowances on Icelandair for it (the other was for Mary Joy's roller bag, still overweight).

The Guggenheim is an unusual modern art museum, not as wide-ranging, say, as the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.  Much of it consisted of an exhibit of automobiles, past, present and future.

Afterwards, Mary Joy and I went on a river cruise.

That evening was the tour's Farewell Dinner, at a restaurant called Lar, in the new town.

We said goodnight and goodbye to a very congenial group.

This was our fourth Rick Steves tour.  The guide, as always, was terrific.  The hotels were okay.  The food, while not as memorable as in Sicily, was good.  We probably won't go back to the area, unless to an organ festival in San Sebastian, or maybe to do more walking on the Camino, but the trip was interesting and worthwhile.