Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Wednesday, 6 May. We lost another hour during the night, but again it didn't matter because this was a day at sea. It seemed that we had been setting our clocks ahead faster than the sun really required, because dusk was now falling after 10:00 p.m. We slept until 8:00 a.m. The day was sunny but windy and cool (high of 60). We read much of the morning and in the afternoon I went to the gym, and Jane went to the Spa for a special combination available today. We attended the 8:00 p.m. show featuring Count Dimas (from Transylvania!), an excellent pianist and a comedian as well. Then we stayed up to see the Dessert Extravaganza at 11:00 (not a Chocolate Extravaganza as the cruise brochure had advertised, although there still was plenty of chocolate). The first half hour was "display only" so everyone could see the elaborate desserts before any of them were served. This was pretty late for us, and we just took a quick walk through and didn't wait to eat anything.
Thursday, 7 May (a.m.). The ship sailed up the Nervio River and docked at Bilbao, Spain, at 8:00 a.m. This was our first visit to the northern coast of Spain and the Basque Country. In its largest sense, the Basque Country is made up of seven traditional regions: four provinces in Spain and three regions in France. However, under Spanish law, three of the the four Spanish Basque provinces (Alava, Biscay, and Gipuzcoa) compose an autonomous community that is also designated as the Basque Country, so the term can be confusing. The day started out overcast, windy and cool (high 60), but the sun peeked through now and then later on. We had signed up for a 9:00 bus tour of Bilbao and the neighboring port town of Castro Urdiales. Bilbao, with about a million people in its metropolitan area, is the largest city in the Basque Country of northern Spain and is the capital of the province of Biscay. It has undergone quite a revival in recent years and boasts such modern architectural attractions as the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum (by Frank Gehry) and the White Bridge (by Santiago Calatrava). Our bus tour took us by both of these. We had debated taking the tour that included the interior of the Guggenheim. (Others who did that said it was a great disappointment because the interior was "barren.")
We got off the bus near the Concordia Station and spent 40 minutes walking through the Casco Viejo (old neighborhood), including visits to the Plaza Nueva, Santiago Cathedral, and the Public Market along the river (Mercado de la Ribera). [Ribera means "along the river" (cf. riviera).] We had a short time on our own before we had to be back to bus at 11:00.
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