From Bordeaux, France we ventured back to the Atlantic and on to Bilbao, Spain. As usual, never enought time to do everything. Here we boarded the shuttle bus at the port and traveled 20 to 30 minutes to the heart of Bilbao. A mostly modern city with museums and lots of things to see just wandering around on the street. Our plan was to do exactly that - wander. After several hours of seeing the sights we returned to the ship and rested our weary feet had some wine for lunch then margaritas filled the afternoon and evening. The next day, we landed in the port of Gijon. Again the plan was to take the shuttle to the old part of town and wander around. It was kind of gloomy but pleasant morning. We did take the room umbrella to keep the rain off but as we wandered around one of the locals took pity on us and gave us her umbrella. We tried to politely refuse but she would not have any of that. She gave us hers and then pulled a spare out of her food cart and off she went to do her morning errands. We humbly thanked her and continued our explorations. Luckily the rain only lasted a short time. The people of Gijon were getting ready for a celebration so the streets were all decorated with symbols of the sea and futbol. Sometime after departure from Gijon, a few of us in the Living Room (bow of the ship), me sipping margaritas, spotted some whales playing along side the ship. And many days we'd spy lots of porposes sailing on our bow wave. Tough to get shots of those sea cratures.
