Gary Snapper

Bilbao Bloggings

The rain in Spain is mainly in Bilbao

www.gabrielsnapper.co.uk/bilbao-bloggings
  • Home
  • English
  • Family
  • Choral
  • Arts
  • Photos
  • About Me
  • Contact Me
  • Links
  • Bilbao Bloggings
  • Midland Missives

The Last Post - Blog's End - Bye Bye Bilbao....

16/9/2013

2 Comments

 
Picture
A regular visitor to our flat, perched precariously on the balcony rail two floors above the street
Our last week in Bilbao, towards the end of June, brought midsummer celebrations. On June 23rd, the Noche de San Juan (St John’s Night) is celebrated with after-dark bonfires on beaches and hilltops throughout the Basque Country, and the usual standing around talking and drinking till the early hours of the night. A few days earlier, Bilbao’s ‘Noche Blanca’ (White Night), took place, another midsummer celebration of light. There was lots of music, dance, etc., around town – but the highlight was the gaudily illuminated buildings around the city:
Picture
We left Bilbao on June 26th. On the evening before our departure, about 15 of Pietro’s colleagues gave us a rousing farewell amidst the empty shelves and packed suitcases in our flat. Next morning, we left a little tearfully on the 8am train from Atxuri Station, and went all the way back home on the train in one day, through San Sebastian, Paris and London, arriving at our little house in East Oxford at 1am.

Within a few hours of getting back, it felt as if we had never been away, but rather had experienced our year in Bilbao in a weird time warp which is in some sense still going on somewhere in another dimension. This is what happens when you go away for a year and come back to a house, a street, a city which have apparently not changed at all, and in which people’s lives (including one’s own) have apparently not changed at all, despite all the extraordinary things you’ve experienced in the intervening time.

It’s great to be home, but leaving Bilbao feels a bit like a bereavement too.  I’ve been keeping the experience artificially alive by continuing to write this blog for a couple of months after our return, but I’ve said most of what I wanted to say now, and it’s time to bring it to a final full stop.

Thanks for reading.  I leave you with  (i) a little 6-minute film that takes you all around the Basque Country and encapsulates the varied landscapes and some of the spirit of the place...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzutvz-eExo
Picture
and (ii) a final miscellany of previously un-posted shots of Bilbao.

Agur, Bilbo!  Bye bye, Bilbao!
Picture
Spring in Plaza Unamuno
Picture
Unamuno in Plaza Unamuno
Picture
Pillars in the Alhondiga
Picture
 Old Town Grocery
Picture
The Cafe Under the Bandstand
Picture
Anti-Bullfighting Poster
Picture
City Library
Picture
Posh Hotel by the Guggenheim
Picture
Beans
Picture
The Beret Shop
Picture
Keeping Watch by the River
Picture
The Santander Railway
Picture
Site of the Medieval Consulado
Picture
In the Casco Viejo
Picture
The Old Hospital
Picture
Moon Over the Guggenheim
Picture
Gritty Suburbs
Picture
Gay Pride in the Casco Viejo
Picture
Drinking Fountain
Picture
The Rain in Spain is Mainly in Bilbao
Picture
Picture
That's All Folks!
2 Comments
Ruth
16/9/2013 05:58:39 pm

A lovely end to a fantastic blog. Very glad to have you home, Gary and Pietro.

Reply
instant assignment help review link
14/11/2019 10:16:57 pm

Their blogs are very good and I love their blogs and I regularly read their blogs and they are pretty good. I love the ending of this blog he ended so well . In this blog he has described this country very well he told us thing which we never heard of before. Nice work keep it up.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Bilbao Bloggings

    A year in Bilbao

    Archives

    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

Proudly powered by Weebly