1. One of the main streets leading into the city of Bilbao.  Our hotel is more or less at the far end of the street (not visible in the photo):

Street scene, Bilbao

2. A fountain in the center of the circular plaza that our hotel is on. I’m standing with my back to our hotel, which is in an older building, to show not just the top of the fountain, but also pieces of the tops of surrounding buildings. The mix of old architecture with new, modern buildings is really quite striking all over town.

Fountain in Bilbao

3. The pièce de résistance of the modern architecture, of course,  is the Guggenheim-Bilbao building. As you sweep down that street that’s in the first photo, you come around a curve and get this view of the building. Very striking:

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao

4. Finally, well, I couldn’t resist including a photo of the bottom of that fountain I showed above. The jets surrounding the base look like wine glasses to me, reminding me of the local custom of going to a bar/cafe and having a glass of wine and a pintxos (the Basque word for tapas):

“Wine Glasses” in a Fountain, Bilbao

Chris and I are about to  head out right now to do just that. It’s only 8pm, which is a bit early, of course, for the real Spanish evening pintxos period. But hey – we’re tourists, we’re allowed to eat early.