Tour of Bilbao and First Day

Yesterday was my first day in Bilbao. By living with a family in Algorta, I must take the metro into Bilbao everyday which is about 20 to 30 minutes. Fortunately, my apartment is about a 1 minute walk to the metro station. I can stand out on the balcony of our apartment and see the metro station. Many people in Spain take the metro, especially in the mornings, but it is never empty. And it is cheap to ride the metro especially if you buy a monthly pass because you can ride the metro as many times as you want. The stop by the school is only a 10 minute walk, so its bad at all.

In the morning my program, CIDE, gave us a packet and did a little orientation about Bilbao and the school and all the information we need to know. After that we walked to a very nice Hotel for a 3 course lunch! It was some of the best food I've had so far. We had this pasta with a sweet tomato sauce, then chicken with a creamy, white sauce and french fries. Then we had some sort of light cake for dessert. We had professional waiters and everything. It was a great lunch!

After lunch, the professors of CIDE split up everyone into groups to take a tour around Bilbao. Oh my goodness did we walk. We all throughout the city for about 2 hours. Walking does not seem to phase any of the Spaniards. All the women wear leather boots with heals or flat or pointed or round toed. I don't know how they can walk all over the place in those shoes though. It doesn't seem to bother them at all. Anyways, one of the professors took us all over the city and gave us a great tour. We went to a part of the city called Casco Viejo which is the old town. The oldest building is this beautiful cathedral that was built in the 14th century. It is the center of the original 7 streets in Bilbao. Bilbao was built as an industrial and shipping town. Barcelona and other parts of Europe needed to be able to ship out all their goods like cotton so Bilbao was founded in the 14th century. There was a big fire though in the 15th century and much of the fire was rebuilt. So you will only find that the oldest houses are of the 16th century (that is still really old though!!) Much of Casco Viejo is walking streets only though, there are some beautiful plazas in it and it is mostly stores or restaurants on the bottom floor and apartments above them. That is how it is in most of Bilbao.

Then we walked around downtown Bilbao where there are many plazas or round-a-bouts that have beautiful statues or fountains in the middle of them. Also, there are not many skyscrapers in Bilbao. There is one that is being built at this moment that is going to be the tallest, but it is really the only one. Most of the buildings are only about 6 stories. The tour was great because we got to see some beautiful places around the city and learned much about the history of Bilbao.

Afterward,  my group went to this department store called El Corte Ingles because it has many American brands. They have these in every city in Spain. And they out do all the wal-marts and targets in the world!! This place was 6 stories, with about everything one could need. You could easily get lost in one of these places.  So I got necessities like shampoo and hair dryer. Oh and then we all went to find the best deal on a cell phone. At the end of the day, we had walked from like 3pm to 8pm, all over the city!! I was so tired and hungry, but I think I'm going to have to get used to it. It seems to be the norm to walk a lot in Bilbao!!

Tomorrow, CIDE is taking us to the Bay of Biscay and the historical towns around it. I'm really excited, but it will be another long day with lots of walking!!

I took some photos on the tour:

This is the plaza Moyoa in downtown Bilbao. It has a fountain and beautiful flowers!

 

 This is the town hall in Bilbao

  Bilbao is surrounded by Mountains that have snow caps right now. Also, there is an estuary that runs through Bilbao.

This is the Cathedral (Catedral) that was built in the 14th century. It is a Gothic Style