Bilbao & the Basque Lands
-- The Sunday Times
This title features: dynamic two-colour layout for easy navigation; brand new colour section that gives a photographic overview of the region, together with special features of the region, tailored itineraries and lists of the best things to do; full-colour touring maps of the whole region; extensive listings of hotels and restaurants - all personally recommended for a really local flavour; and, Top Don't Miss sights for each regional chapter, plus Author Choices of personal favourite places to stay and eat. It explores the heart of one of Europe's most distinctive regions, with its stunning architecture, chic seaside towns and breathtaking mountains. It uncovers the wonders of Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum, the adrenalin-fuelled bull running in Pamplona and the Belle Epoque glories of San Sebastian. You can discover some of Spain's most exuberant fiestas, from Vitoria's Virgen Bianca to Mauleon's espadrille festival. It details perfect places to stay for any budget including hand-picked hotels and B&Bs, sophisticated 17th-century paradores and idyllic mountain retreats. It includes detailed coverage of the best places to eat and drink the tastiest pintxos the finest Rioja wine at one of hundreds of personally visited and recommended restaurants and bars.
Excerpt: The Guggenheims
On top of earth or under it, so fearful is their might
They’ll gobble all there is to get and turn you inside out
The Guggenheims will get you if you don’t watch out.
Washington Times, 1910
Gobblers? By the 1970s, even most Americans only remembered the Guggenheims for the extraordinary museum in New York that bears their name, forgetting how only a few decades before their names were splashed regularly across the front pages as one of the dozen richest families in the United States. The one link they have with Bilbao is metals: iron made Bilbao, copper made the Guggenheims. And the fruit of their unlikely marriage, fittingly, is a titanium miracle child.
The Guggenheims were one of the great American sagas of rags to riches. ...click here to read the rest
Dana Facaros and Michael Pauls can be reached at: michel.pauls@wanadoo.fr
