San Sebastian; forever young

San Sebastian
We drove across northern Spain rapidly in our little Citroen Nemo. Andy feels good driving it, as it is very similar to his Honda Element, but it uses diesel. It is a great little car! I did not realize how mountainous the coast is -- several long tunnels, and peaks like the alps. We found a pension late at night in Castro-Urdiales, a beach town outside Bilbao. Lovely little beac;, tightly packed blocks of apartments for miles. In the morning went in to Bilbao to the Guggenheim museum. The streets are well- marked. (Santander is a huge industrial city : & Big corporate offices around a port --and it was hard to get out of. )
The museum is gorgeous, I love how it occupies its space on the river. There was a big David Hockney show, and his Yorkshire landscapes are a lot like the Camino-- rural, especially bright spring greens. There was a marvelous video and demos of his use of the I- pad -- and Yosemite! Andy immediately thought of more ways to use the cubist collage ideas. I loved walking in the Gehry curved metal labyrinthine pieces.
We got to San Sebastian in time to have a great swim-- the water is pretty warm inside the sheltered bay. The big apartment buildings are beautiful, and densely packed, but it has a Santa-Cruz flavor, as well as Santa Monica. There is a statue of the Sacred heart of Jesus on the mountain out in the bay, blessing the town-- it is lit- up at night. They have fireworks on the eve of the feast of the saint, in January. We found a pension in the old city, and had a fantastic fish meal at Sebastian's on the port -- the north side of the harbor. We also had tapas and sangria before dinner-- eating late like the Spanish do! I like roasted pimientos. We drank Albanilo white wine which was wonderful with rake fish for dinner.
The adventure of today is that Bruce Springsteen is here to sing tonight, and there is no room anywhere. We got another miracle-- after waking up to find the streets emptied of cars including ours which was impounded with them, a lady we met in line to retrieve hers as well, took us into her home, next to the stadium where the concert will be. Tomorrow is my last day-- will take bus to Biarritz after we turn in the car.