Whatever Turns You On – Gehry’s Little Pieces of Heaven.

 

The Guggenheim, Bilbao

The jury is still out on WHO left the computer charger in Santander and cut me off from all you dear readers.

I am responsible for soft ware: my and the girls’ suitcases, administering sticking plasters, sun cream, chu-chus, etc. and I stick diligently to my job description. HE only has the computer bag to worry about but I guess it is that old chestnut of multi-tasking that you males of the race suffer from that prevented Mr. Jules from packing away the computer AND the charger. We all go at our own evolutionary pace and you men will get there in the end.

We have a lot of catching up to do.

First of all let me just talk about the Easyjet Trap. When we thought about our trip to the Basque country, we were excited about the prospect of visiting the architect Frank Gehry’s masterpiece for the Guggenheim in Bilbao. We compared airfares to Biarritz, Bilbao itself and Bordeaux. Price-wise Easyjet to Bordeaux won, but the low cost of the fare somehow killed off the part of our brain that said THAT CHEAP? ALERT long car journey required!!! So on arrival and duly lobotomised, we set out from Bordeaux taking a forever 2 1/2 hours to reach the mediocre hotel (required as cheap flights have inconvenient end of day arrival times another overlook) that Mr. Jules swears looked fabulous on the website. Unfortunately websites do not transmit local odeurs and I know the French care less about what comes out of their bodies than what goes in, but man, this hotel’s drain-odeur could strip paint from walls.

The next day we drove for 3(00) hours to Santander to pick up Sophie-G, cursing our own stupidity all the way and had Lexi seriously wondering what sort of parents we were. The bellboy ignored us at the lovely old-world hotel Real in Santander arriving as we did noisily (diesel), brainless, crumpled and sweaty, in our laughably tiny rented SEAT XL, but once settled, it was a delightful stay.

On day three we drove to Bilbao and stood in stunned silence looking at the museum. It is bold, daring and beautiful with its buckling sheets of twisted, curved, gravity defying titanium. A behemoth of architectural non-sense, that works. The inside doesn’t disappoint either and Richard Serra’s massive rusty metal ellipses, part of the permanent exhibition, are the perfect accompaniment, pushing the boundaries of What is Art? even further. I’m the sort of person who likes big, bold and boundaries pushed so we swirled around the giant rusty circles in a crazed, energised, demented fashion until we came upon the echoing spiral and felt compelled to sing (sans Mr. J.) the opening bars to Mama Mia.

That night we drove in-country for an hour for my birthday treat: Two nights at the Marqués de Riscal, Gehry’s hotel. This looks so absurdly odd, sitting like a giant child’s mangled toy left out in the thunderstorm that heralded our arrival, that I burst out laughing.

Hotel Marqués de Riscal

The rooms are unusual (wouldn’t you know) -pod-like capsules catering to a guest’s every need. It is a Spa Hotel but strangely this is one indulgence I can do without – I know it is astonishing. (Mr. Jules on the other hand, is a sucker for a massage but preferred the Chinese run massage parlour at the shopping mall in Washington where they pumelled him into oblivion for a fraction of the price.) BUT the lovely much more important surprise, was that the hotel is surrounded by the Marqués de Riscal winery which produces such great Rioja that it is the only wine to have won a prestigious Bordeaux award outside of France. The wine tour with tasting is not to be missed. All in all, it was a magical, spiritually energising two days where all thoughts of lost computer chargers and car sickening journeys were completely forgotten.

Thank you Mr. Gehry.

Copyright Jules Ritter August 2008