eurotripping: bilbao, valencia.

BILBAO

The first time I was in Spain (I went to Madrid five years ago), I really regretted not getting to visit the Guggenheim in Bilbao. So, of course on this Europe trip, I knew I had to make a visit. And yes, the Guggenheim was the only reason why I wanted to visit the Basque Country. My stay in Bilbao was very short, so I made sure to hit all of the hot spots in my only full day there. 

The Guggenheim was great and the building, designed by Frank Gehry, is absolutely spectacular. I ended up spending so much time walking around it and simply admiring the architecture. The room with the Richard Serra works is just so cool and so worth checking out. Apart from the Guggenheim, I walked all over the city, taking in the sights such as the Zubizuri bridge and sampling Basque cuisine.

VALENCIA

It was hot, hot, hot in Valencia during my visit, so that influenced my food intake there, as well as how I got around the city to sightsee. My diet consisted mostly of sorbet, fruit, and frozen yogurt, and I ended up purchasing a ticket for the hop-on-hop-off buses so that I wouldn’t have to walk in the extreme Spanish heat. Although the buses make it ever so obvious that you’re a tourist, it’s such a great way to see a lot of a city and you get to spare your feet of the pain from walking around all day. The one downside was that I ended up completely tanned on the front side of my body. So yeah, I had a killer tan from my shorts and my nose was probably 4 shades darker than the rest of my face.

Next: the final stop of my 2-month Eurotrip!