Today, we took a tour of Bilbao, beginning with a morning at the Guggenheim and ending with a walk through the Old Town.

The Guggenheim has a rotating “in situ” exhibit; the current one is Unsettling Dust: The Body’s Archive – Igshaan Adams.

And then it was time to leave the museum for our tour, but we had to stop at the Puppy!

We’re in Bilbao for next week’s total eclipse of the sun; today, we toured San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, Mundaka, and Guernica.

We’ve never watched Game of Thrones, but we were told that they’d used San Juan de Gaztelugatxe as “Dragonstone”; the climb to it certainly looked (and was) imposing.

After the climb, we were ready for lunch; a short drive to Mundaka and we were seated outside the Hotel El Puerto enjoying salads with delicious fresh tomatoes and local tuna.

Our final stop was Guernica, which was a sacred place to the Basque people because it housed the oak tree under which all significant government decisions were made. When the old oak tree died, they planted a new one – the most recent tree was preserved in a mausoleum after it died.

Of course, Guernica is known to most of the world as the site of a massive bombing raid and follow-up slaughter during the Spanish Civil War.

We returned to Bilbao exhausted and educated, just in time to meet our touring companions at the evening reception.