The Great Euro Trip of 2022 Pt. 1

 

Flying in the face of any new COVID variants, we began our long scheduled Euro adventure in hopes that the plague had abated enough for us to survive.  We signed up for a river cruise way back in the middle of the plague when cruise lines were desperate for travelers.  As a result, AMA river cruises gave us 3 free days in Bilbao and the Basque Country.  After trying to negotiate the COVID protocols for travel in 3 countries (many hours of uploading VAX cards and registering on web sites), I was off across the Atlantic.

I met Miriam (who had been teaching in Lyon) at Schiphol in Amsterdam to fly from there to Bilbao.  I paid some extra bucks for an upgraded seat so I could get the famous KLM lunch.  I had experienced this lunch previously and hoped KLM hadn't cut back on services.  And I was rewarded!  Check out these pics of my lunch on the way to Bilbao.  Other airlines gotta up their game!

The box...

The meal...

Such a wonderful presentation.  I love this airline!

We arrived at the beautiful, modern Bilbao airport.  The airport is small and easily negotiated (not. like Schiphol!!!).  More on the architecture later.  The city itself is quite wonderful, with an old town and also with a very modern posture.

A view from our hotel of the park along the river

The soccer stadium (the major design structure of most European cities) and a new office building:

Just down from our (NH) hotel, was a wonderful footbridge across the river.  

The bridge, along with the airport, was designed by Santiago Calatrava, and therein lies a story.  It rains a lot in Bilbao, and parking for the airport had no connection to the terminal... creating frustration for travelers.  And the foot part of the footbridge was done in glass, so people could see the river below them, but the rain on glass created much slipping, sliding, and injury, so the glass was lined with an opaque material that allowed traction in the wet.  This led to a lawsuit by the architect.  And so it goes...

A couple more important features found around Bilbao will appear in the next installment of this blog series.  Stay tuned!