Porto

 Our next town was Porto, the sardine capital of the world.  We knew that Portugal did a lot of fishing for sardines but this exceeded expectations.  Jerry really found a variety that he could not resist so there are a lot of canned sardines coming home.

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We opted for a local tour.

There were many street performers giving concerts.

We went into a “shopping center” and found a small poke restaurant for lunch.  

The town square featured a large fountain.

As usual, there were many churches.

La Coruna

We left Bilbao on our cruise to the first stop, La Coruna, the town in Spain that is closest to NewYork.  We took a side trip to the old town of Betanzos where our first stop was a visit to the Tower of Hercules, a Roman lighthouse.  It is the oldest lighthouse in existence.

The town of Betanzos was founded by two brothers who traveled to South America, made a lot of money, and returned to Spain to establish the city.  They paid for public education, a hospital, and, according to our guide, did a lot of good work.  Don’t know how true the story is.

The town was surrounded by an old wall which was common in the area.

The church of San Francisco is the principal one in the area and, at the time we were there, a wedding was going on.

The town square is typical of the area.

Bilbao day 3

 We started our last full day in Bilbao with a free walking tour of the old city.  What was supposed to be a one hour walk stretched to two hours with a detailed talk about Basque culture and the politics of the area.  The Basques would prefer to separate from Spain and would like to have their own country. 

After our walk we decided to take a cruise up the river past the Guggenheim to the area where the river empties into the ocean.  Good photo opps for sights along the river and the skyline of Bilbao.  

Good shots of the spider 

Some of the houses of the upper class.

Other buildings were not so fortunate.

The newest bridge across the river was made of steel and the walkway of glass.

Tomorrow we board the ship for our cruise.

The Guggenheim

 Visiting the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao has been on our bucket list for years and we finally did it.   The museum exceeded expectations.  Although some of the exhibits could be classified as weird, most are best called WOW.  The photos do not do it justice, you have to see it in person starting with the Puppy which is outside of the main enterance.

We decided to walk along the river from our hotel, about 1.5 km to the museum.  We found there is art along the way.

As you approach the museum the first work is the famous spider.

We worked our way around the building to see the puppy on its last day of flowers for the year.  They stopped decorating him for the winter on September 30 so we were lucky.

Entering the museum was a pleasure.  The fee for seniors is nine euros.  Also the food is inexpensive.  Great compared to many places in the US.  The first room we entered has a massive wall hanging that was made of crushed bottle caps.  Don't know how many million it took to make this.

Another room contained a familiar work featuring Marilyn.

There were small works too.

The largest exhibit hall contained a series of  rooms made out of sheets of iron.  As you walked through the parts of the work you were easily disoriented.  Jerry was not comfortable with it.

We spent most of the day in the museum and found it well worth the visit.

Bilbao

We are in Europe after a two day stay in New York with Jeff, Cheryl and Bennett.  In the city we saw three plays, Schmigadoon, Hadestown and Two Strangers Carrying a Cake Across New York.  All were excellent.  On Sunday night, we boarded a plane for Bilbao, Spain at midnight.  That was a long flight.

Our first day in Bilbao we took a tour to St. Sebastian, an hour drive from Bilbo.  Ancient city and, in its earlier days was a seaport. Now mostly pleasure craft.

The concert stand was built in about 1890. 

Consistora is a 1900 casino and now a new town hall.

 The city was originally surrounded by a wall and we entered the old town through what used to be a gate.

Narrow streets lead to a market square where vendors sold their goods in the early years.

The town square was surrounded by apartments of three floors with the servants living and working in the top rooms.

On our way back to Bilbao we stopped at an overlook of the city where our guide displayed some local sculpture. 

 

Tenq

 Our day in Tena started with a two hour walk through the jungle.  The Amazon rainforest is a unique ecosystem where you can see wildlife, insects, animals and plants.  The vegetation was very dense and not at all familiar to us.  

We did meet some interesting characters 

Later tonight we will do a night walk through the jungle to check out the sounds and sights after dark.
 

 

 We began our trip to Ecuador with a non stop flight to Orlando, FL.  On Friday morning, before boarding our flight south, we walked around a small lake near the Ramada hotel.  We watched at this bird was working on getting his breakfast.

We arrived back at the airport and boarded our flight to Quito, Ecuador.  We arrived at night and saw very little but could tell that this was a very hilly area.  Saturday morning we began with a city tour that took us by several churches, a high end chocolate shop, the Presidential palace and the central square.  The streets were very busy and there were all kinds of street vendors.

 We went into the San Francisco Church

 After our city tour we boarded a bus for a five hour drive to the Amazon Basin and the small town of Tena.  Along the route, we climbed to the highest point in Ecuador, in excess of 12,000 feet.  We were really in the clouds.

We stopped to see several waterfalls along the route.

Arriving in Tena we took a mile long dirt road to our hotel which consisted of several wooden cabins.  Our room was on the second floor with a great balcony and a view of the forest.  We met our guide who would be with us for the next few days.  

Dinner was great and we look forward to our jungle walk tomorrow.