{{ bilbao }}

Semana Grande, Spanish for Big Week, is Bilbao's main festival that starts on the 3rd Saturday in the month of August, lasting 9 days. Bilbao, 14 km south of Bay of Biscay, is the largest city of the Basque Country.

We were there for two days, arriving on the 1st day of the festival!

The architecture in Bilbao is a little mixed. I found it a bit strange to find modern looking buildings sitting on one side of the street and classical style buildings on the other.

There it is again! Garbage bins out on the streets...

I quite like this. There is one single tree planted right in front of a police station.

Booths are set up for the festival...

Churro stands...

A walker that I am, I once again dragged my brother into touring the city on foot for hours... The downtown area is surrounded by two mountain ranges with an average elevation of 400 metres. Within the urban area, there are steep hills. And when I see hills, I want to go up on those hills...

This walkway on the right brings you to an elevator, which takes you down to street level at just less than 1 euro per person. I'm not sure how many metres above it is but from the photo, you can see how high up it is.

These condos look pretty fancy...

This is quite an awesome looking pedestrian bridge. The walkway is actually see-through, but because they've had some accidents with that, now the walkway is mostly covered with carpet.

Gehry's famous Guggenheim...

Its more overwhelming to see it in person...

Festival parade...

they were extremely efficient at cleaning the streets....

{{ second largest Basque city: Vitoria-Gasteiz }}

The Fiestas de la Virgen Blanca is celebrated each year from Aug. 4th to 9th. While the Spanish bullfighting - corrida de toros - is common in Spain, it only takes place during the festivals in the northern provinces. It is more common and occurs more often in the south of the country. I've never seen a bullfight nor do i know much about it. The only bits of knowledge I have of bullfighting is from the opera Carmen. That is saying a lot...

There are some pretty modern looking buildings. This is the library...It kind of looks like a ship.

In spain, all the garbage and recycling bins (big and small) are not even hidden in small alleys, but lined up along the sides of big streets. They're very obtrusive in the street scene. You occasionally see different, more artistic designs, which can pass as public art.

Like Hong Kong, Vitoria is quite a hilly town. So like Hong Kong, they've implemented these moving walkways to save people the trouble of walking uphill.

Basque is an ancestral language of the Basque people (665,800 native speakers in 2006), who inhabit in the Basque Country ( a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France).

Being the second largest Basque city, here in Vitoria one can observe distinctly the Basque culture.

Setting up the stage for music performances...

Locals in traditional attire of each clan drinking alcohol and getting ready for the festival...

Even the bullring is modern?