Summer holidays {part 1}

We're back from our summer holidays!! We've been travelling through Portugal & Spain (and a couple of days in the French Pyrenees) for almost 4 weeks! We left Versailles on a rainy morning and after 900 km and 9 hours of driving we arrived in Bilbao, in the Basque Country, in the north of Spain. It was a sunny afternoon and the city really surprised us. We had been to San Sebastian and Santander about 16 years ago, but so far never made it to Bilbao. 

From our hotel we walked down the (newer) shopping streets to the historic centre which is beautiful and full of little shops, nice squares & narrow alleys.

 

 

 

  

Of course we had to stop somewhere for the first tapas of the holidays.

It was a nice place to sit & relax and it had a lovely view:

There was a lot more to see & explore:

Old & new are very well mixed in Bilbao: 

 

The next day, it rained a little bit and after a late breakfast in a local 'pasteleria', we headed to the Guggenheim. For sure the Guggenheim museum that opened for the public in 1997 gave the city a boost in terms of tourism.

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art, designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry. It is built alongside the Nervion river, which runs through the city of Bilbao, to the Atlantic coast. The Guggenheil is one of several museum belonging to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. The museum features permanent and visiting exhibitions by Spanish and international artists.

No pictures from inside (left the camera in the locker as we thought it was not allowed to take pictures...), but some from outside (it's difficult to capture the beauty of the building in one picture... so I had to grab in from someone else!!):

(picture from here)

 

 

After the visit, the weather changed so we had a lunch outside & I did some shopping :))

The next morning we woke up early again and entered Lisbon in our GPS system... another 850 km to go.

Are you ready for our next stop??

See you later with our stay in Lisbon!!

Bisous,