One last gallery.

OK - so I´ve made it to San Sebastian - which is a gorgeous little city with three beaches - one of them is even a ´surf´beach!!!! Although from what I´ve seen its not quite the surf I´m used to... The main beach reminds me a bit of Bondi - with buildings all along the foreshore and a crescent shaped bay - but the stretch of sand is tiny - and there were sooooo many people on the beach yesterday, when I arrive at 5 pm it was still 36 C and you could barely see the sand for the people. And there are plastic chairs that live their lives bolted to poles in the sand and available for hire if you dont want to sit on a towel.

The B&B where I am staying is right in the heart of town and a couple of blocks from the beach. I woke up (sort of) early and went for a swim this morning. Today turned out to be cool and cloudy and I pretty much had the whole beach to myself. Luz who runs the place is delightful and a veritable font of knowledge re places to visit and the best bars for tapas and the best retaurants for paella and which days to visit where and how to get there...

Last night I walked around and explored - the place was really happening on a Saturday night. All these people in tiny bars drinking wine and eating pintoxs (tiny two bite tapas), and a band was playing in the square and people were busy promenading, seeing and being seen. I had late dinner in a little restuarant by the bay and had fresh grilled sardines (and thought of Gus - sardines being second only to bbq chicken in his estimation - and it being a month since his sad demise. Not looking forward to getting back to a house without him...)

Today I caught the bus to Bilbao and went to the mad architectural creation that is Frank Gehry´s Guggenheim Museum. It a fantastic yet bizarre building - and has far less gallery space than I was expecting - and therefore less to see. Although there was a great sculpture hall full of work by Richard Serra that was based on spirals and ellipses that you could walk through and around and in, and an interesting LED work by Jenny Holzer. There was also a great retrospective of the work of Juan Munoz - sculptures and installations and the like....

I recall reading somewhere that the Bilbao Guggenheim has become a one off destination - that people visit to see the building and not the art, and thus once seen they dont return. I can see how that would happen....

So in order to get a complete art fix I also visited the other art gallery in Bilbao that covers 1850 - 1950 - and saw a lot of Spanish art by artists I had never heard of and saw the influence of what had happenen in Paris in its Spanish manifestations.... as well as works by Juan Gris, Ferdinand Leger, Mary Cassatt, Paul Gaugin, Marc Chagall, James Ensor....

OK this is for the NAS people - it occurs to me that in all the major galleries that I have visited in the last few weeks - Art Institute of Chicago, MOMA, The Met, National Gallery, Courtauld, National Portrait Gallery, Hunterian, Musee dÓrsay, Lourve, LÓrangerie, Marmottan, Mont Marte, Prado, Reina Sofia, Thyssen -B etc I have yet to see a work by Euan Uglow.... or if I have, I didn´t recognise it as such. How can that be?????

The train trip to San Seb was uneventful if 6 hours long - although the Spanish countryside is cliched pretty with old stone buildings with terracotta tiles and drifts of red poppies and blue lavendar...

Tomorrow is again meant to be cool. And there is some sort of bonfire / firecracker night happening on the surf beach as part of the Festival of the Annunciation - or something like that - or maybe its to do with Mary ascending into heaven - anyway Luz is taking us with her to be a part of it. Let´s hope its not raining....

Oh yeah - and I was stopped and asked for directions while in Bilbao... unbelievable!