On the Road and In Your Backyard

Good Morning All,

This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.

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Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!

 

Today, pictures from esteemed commenter J R in WV.

We visited Spain and France back in 2013, to tour the caves of the Pyrenees Mountains with ancient paintings. It was a tour sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America, and I can recommend their tours for excellence. We flew into Bilbao early, and met the tour group at the airport when they flew in a day later, so as to be more rested when we started the somewhat strenuous tour.

We were walking around an older part of town when we saw the bottom of the Bilbao Funicular, which is the tallest funicular I am aware of so far. After Bill in Glendale posted his pix of the small Angel’s Flight funicular in LA I thought I would post my pix from Bilbao. I have posted historic pics from this trip, but not focused on this particular funicular in downtown Bilbao.

Flight Data

Taken on 2013-09-25

Onboard a Delta flight from JFK in New York to Madrid, Spain.

This was the scenery on the video screen in front of us flying to Spain on a Delta flight. This was a reschedule for us as the Air France flight to Paris was canceled as the aircraft never left Charles de Gaulle Airport due to mechanical problems. So we flew via Madrid to Bilbao instead.

The Madrid Airport is huge, multiple terminals spread around a huge set of runways, all deserted when we were there! More security staff than passengers until we found our small gate for local travel. The flight to Bilbao was fairly filled up, but none of the other gates in the terminal we flew from were open for anything.

Bottom station of Bilbao Funicular

Taken on 2013-09-26

In Bilbao, Spain, across the river from the more business oriented part of town, where the big art museum is located.

As you can see, people use this steep railroad all the time. I’ll point out the text above the entrance, the name of the short railroad is Artxanda, on the left is Spanish “Funicular de Artxanda”and on the right is Basque “Artxanda ko Funikularra, which is nothing like the Spanish text. Lots of Xs and Ks on all the local signs.

The single funicular car at the bottom station

Taken on 2013-09-26

This is the bottom of the two stations of this short RR line. As you can see, it is spotlessly clean, as most of the places we visited were. It’s also a lot steeper rail line than it look in this particular photo.

Bilbao’s famous Art Museum

Taken on 2013-09-26

A shot from the big park at the top end station of the Bilbao Artxanda funicular. There are exercise stations, sculptures, monuments, playgrounds, lots of trees, and obviously miles of residential neighborhoods on the mountain top.

Designed by Frank Geary, his style is unmistakable. You can tell we are way, way above the downtown where we boarded the car. The red sheath on the highway bridge was an outdoor art project, I believe it’s a laminate-like material, and the artist built a tiny model and then they got a grant to build the actual life-sized version. A BIG grant – and the people who built it obviously had no problem with working at height!!

Memorial to those who died in the Spanish Civil War, won by the fascists.

Taken on 2013-09-26

This is a huge rolled steel sheet, cut to show a fingerprint. Then placed and let weather – it may be Corten steel, which rusts a little, which forms a layer preventing further corrosion. If you think about it, there’s a lot of symbolism of life and death and enormity in this art work.

Funicular RR top station

Taken on 2013-09-26

This shows the funicular RR car waiting at the top station. You can tell a little better how steep this short run RR actually is from this photo, and you can even see downtown, which was WAY down below the top station.

 

Thank you so much J R in WV, do send us more when you can.

 

Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.

 

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