Footsore in Bilbao

We returned to Bilbao this week after 5 years!  The reason for going was to catch the David Hockney exhibition which was at the RA in London in the spring; it transferred to the Guggenheim Museum and is on till the end of September.  Bilbao is a 6 hour drive for us but, once again (and even with GPS this time) we seemed to drive around the city centre for an hour when we got there.  This was our own fault because, going through the city to our hotel, we realised that a) it was going to be much too far away from the museum for Sue to be able to walk, and b) the area we were driving through looked like the patch for drug dealers and prostitutes!!!  We fortunately found another hotel near to the museum and, totally by chance it was the same hotel which we stayed in 5 years ago.  We didn't begin to remember it until I was walking in to the reception.  The episode has made us realise that, in future we will need to be within close walking distance of the 'attractions' and the hotel will need to have it's own parking facilities.  (Barcelona in the spring?)

We both thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition; we had a number of stimulating discusions about it over a glass of wine, and we have returned home full of enthusiasm to press on with finishing the house in our 'minimalist' style and press on with developing my own amateurish painting efforts.

So much to do and not enough time to do it all!!!!!

Amongst the exhibits at the Guggenheim we saw one or two interesting items ....

.....I might have got these mixed up??

One result of us finding the same hotel was that we went back to the restaurant we used on our previous visit.  We chose an all inclusive menu which looked good value because, as we thought, there was an amount of sharing of courses.  However, the starter came and was a small portion of Foie-gras between the two of us.  We thought it a bit strange but .... once we'd finished it we were served with a large plate of salad consisting of grated cheese and Serrano ham ... followed, when we'd finished the salad, with a bowl of calamares with mushrooms and asparagus!  Here ended the starters!!!  As you can imagine we both felt as if we were ready for puddings.
Our main course arrived without any more suprises although we were struggling to get through the bottle of wine between the two of us.  And so on to the dessert and two glasses of lemon sorbet were placed on the table which we thought was ideal after such a large meal.  Therefore, you can imagine our discomfort when a further plate was produced which contained one large portion of chocolat gateau covered in rich gooey chocolate sauce, 3 profiteroles with a portion of ice cream, a portion of caramel sponge layered with mousse and finally a different flavour of ice cream served on slices of Kiwi.  We staggered home!
However, to show you how really stupid we are, we decided to eat in the hotel the next evening.  But, when the time came to go to the restaurant in the hotel, we found that it was shut.  So, what did we do?  Yes, back to our 'favourite' restaurant again.  I still can't believe that we subjected ourselves to that punishment again, although we did cry off of the plate of gateaux (yes, even Sue who is reknown for her sweet tooth).

We are now back to a healthy diet and sensible portions!!!