Spain: The Guggenheim

I recently went on vacation with my family to the Basque region in northern Spain. We visited two cities: Bilbao and San Sebastian. I took a lot of pictures and am pretty happy with a lot of them. Instead of posting the pictures all at once, I'll be posting them over the next few days in organized by theme. This first post consists of pictures of the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. Designed by Frank Gehry, the Guggenheim is a colossal titanium and glass structure with and astounding design. Some people cite it as the most important architectural work completed in the 20th century, and the museum's design has a tendency to overshadow the works inside. What stood out the most to me was that as you moved around the museum its metal curves would take on a completely different shapes. Hopefully these photos reflect the astounding scale and design of the Guggenheim museum.

a quickr pickr post

A funny story to go along with the pictures: I woke up one morning jet lagged and unable to fall asleep. Luckily, the sun hadn't risen yet so I decided to go out and take pictures. I brought along my tripod and was setting up to take pictures of the Guggenheim on a bridge that crossed over a large river and a smaller decorative lake around the museum. I rested my tripod (in its case) against the bridge's railing. As I took some pictures without the tripod I accidentally tapped the tripod with my foot. The top slipped off away from the railing and into the gap in between, sending the entire tripod spinning into the watery depths below. I looked up watch in horror as it smashed into the water. Luckily, it was a very cheap tripod and it had landed in the middle of the small decorative lake, not the river. 

I watched helplessly as my poor tripod sank. Back at the hotel I entertained thoughts of sneaking into the lake in the middle of the night to retrieve my tripod, but decided against it. Eventually, we told the Guggenheim staff what happened and they somehow procured it from the lake and handed it over to us in a plastic bag when we left (I never learned how we got it out). I was going to upgrade my tripod to something a little more sturdy, and probably still will, but I will have to keep this one around the house now for sentimental value.