As I finally sit down to edit my notes and publish this post, it's exactly a month since we returned from our lovely holiday in the Basque country - and Basque in glory we did. There was plenty of food, drinks, journeys into the interior and to the Atlantic coast, music, and even a bit of sunshine. It's actually quite nice to write this now rather than immediately after our return - there was way too much to do at the time, and way too much to talk about. Now I feel that the really important bits have consolidated in the memory and writing brings back some Proustian feelings, perfumes, tastes, emotions.
Contrary to our original plans to drive to Galicia after the Bruce gig in San Sebastian, we decided to stay in our friend's flat in Barakaldo, in the suburbs of Bilbao, to properly experience the city.
We had been to the Guggenheim before - each time managing to arrive just as the current exhibition was closing, and leaving before the next one would come in (the last time it was, irritatingly, a vast Anselm Kiefer retrospective; this time it was the current
Tate Modern Cy Twombly exhibition, and fortunately I've already seen it and loved it), so there was plenty of time to explore other areas of Bilbao.
Bilbao has a long-standing history of river-related trade and industry. The old docks have been completely done up and are now part of an excellent
Museo Maritimo, and it is lovely to walk along the river from the coast to the old town. The river divides the city and suburbs into two main areas: the disused docks, ship-yards, factories and working class residences perch on one side, and the posh villas of the (mostly English) factory owners sit grandly amidst the greenery on the other. Barakaldo with its proletarian, everyday town kind of crowd is on the former; there we attended a politically-themed feria with human rights groups stalls, Euskadi-themed punk bands gigs, and cheap subsidised drinks and food. (No wonder that when Bruce Springsteen does Bilbao he plays at the new
Exhibition Centre in Barakaldo: the place definitely has a blue-collar feel that reminded me of Pittsburgh and Jersey. Once you step into any food shop it's another world, though!)
Smart and luxurious Getxo is on the latter; an international jazz festival awaited us there, featuring a marching band from New Orleans, the Swedish winners of the annual new bands competition, and a gig by veteran Archie Shepp. The beach at Getxo was lovely even in the misty grey of a wet dusk, and dozens of bars with open-air grills let their fragrant fish and meat made any attempt to restrain the intake of food entirely redundant.
The city's absolute gem, I think, is the Casco Viejo. You'll find a Casco Viejo in most Spanish cities - it's the area where the original settlement of the city started off, and it will typically include some medieval buildings and churches, a market, and plenty of narrow labyrinthine lanes with shops and delicatessens, bars and pensiones.
The Casco Viejo of Bilbao experienced its revival high point in life during the Belle Epoque, when the city discovered a fascination with wrought iron balconies, coloured Liberty glass, and fancy above-the-door sculpture. Everything has been restored recently in the wake of the big Guggenheim investment into the redevelopment of the city, and the few ugly remnants of Fascist architecture, left untouched by the cleaning operation, give the city a certain energetic desire for modernity, a disenfranchisement from the darkness of Franco era. I have a feeling that some people might have wanted to get rid of these buildings, but then it was decided to leave them in place as a memento mori for the ugliness of fascism. Like an awkward ancestor in a new family, their presence in the urban and social DNA cannot be erased, and is left there to remind people of what was and think hard about what can be. If only the same could be said about Fascist architecture in Italy.
The Casco Viejo has a central area called la Siete Calles, pinpointed by fabulous little bars offering the traditional evening pintxo - a sophisticated type of pre-dinner aperitif that it would be blasphemous to merely call tapas. Fat, juicy anchovies lie on beds of leek and carrot purées on small pieces of bread; delicious fillets of marinated bonito (the white tuna of the Atlantic coast) sing along tasty tomatoes soaked in olive oil; slices of tender Iberico and Pata Negra ham flavour the air of the bar.
The rule is: you can only have one drink in each bar; you may go back later, but never order a second drink, and don't help yourself to a second pintxo. You can order a kosetxero o un Crianza if Rioja and Ribera are your thing; a civilized zurito will present you with a tiny drink of cerveza (no more than 25ml), allowing for several rounds in the next ten bars you're likely to visit before dinner. If you fancy something more continental, a Marianito is what they call a Martini Rosso. The local drink par excellence is kalimotxo. I won't tell you what it is because the description might turn a few stomachs - just try and let yourself be surprised. Of all the Casco Viejo bars the one I loved the best is, without a doubt,
Victor Montes. The locals will tell you it's posh and upmarket, but it's completely affordable and entirely amazing.
Other culinary highlights included two visits to the
Centro Gallego de Barakaldo, a social club for immigrants from the next region along the coast, who might find themselves homesick for some Pulpo a la Gallega and Tarta de Santiago. You can't get more local than this spartan hideout - and you can't get better octopus or grilled langoustine in Bilbao. After sucessfully negotiating the complex food ordering ritual and the menu in Gallego and Basque the first time, we just had to go back for seconds. We were their only tourists - they were puzzled the first time we visited, and warmly impressed the second time, even mustering some English.
We had an unforgettable late dinner at a local restaurant in Basurto called El Aldeano, whose location I been sworn to preserve the secrecy of, lest the prices increase. It was haute cuisine, if ever I experienced it: four fine starters of pimientos del padron, Pata Negra, boquerones, and marinated belly of bonito; baked neck and head of monkfish and an enormous sizzling steak for main courses; a sortido of four desserts; jerez; Ribera del Duero and Crianza as if there were no tomorrow.
But the best meals were often improvised with a piece of bread and some ham: the Basque rub tomato and olive oil on bread before laying down the contents of a sandwich, and the refreshing mixture of flavours colours my memories of swimming in some truly unexpected locations.
We found ourselves at the mouth of the river on the way to Gernika, where the ocean meets the sweet waters of the mountains, swimming in a bizarre spot fenced in by a railroad crossing and some 1960s architectural atrocities,
as well as in completely deserted natural gulfs, high and mighty Atlantic waves crashing into the cliffs on either side of the sandy recess, us playing like children. After a brief stop-over at a beautiful whale-hunters' sanctuary perched on a rock in the middle of the sea, we drove towards the green, hilly interior.
(con'td)
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