Life at sea – Mural by Djoels in Basque Country (5 photos)

https://streetartutopia.com/2024/02/19/life-at-sea-mural-by-djoels-in-basque-country/

A visit to Museo Guggenheim Bilbao | Guggenheim Bilbao Museum—which is a modern art gallery (it displays art), but is considered a museum because it also collects, preserves, studies, & contextualizes art as part of a broader cultural mission. We 🅿️ in Berango & took the 🚆 into Bilbao. As we approached the museum we encountered “Puppy”; this oversized dog-shaped artwork is covered in seasonal flowers (📷1). Continuing around the building to the riverside aspect lets you better appreciate its non-conformist architectural design by Frank Gehry (📷2). Riverside is also the location of “Maman”, a giant spider that looks as if it could have been a Wētā Workshop installation (📷3). The largest installation inside is called “The Matter of Time” & comprises 8 massive, curved steel sculptures that create winding paths you can walk through (📷4). For some folk it “awakens a heightened awareness of one's own body, of gravity, and of the surrounding space”, apparently. Once inside others will find only what they took in with them…

🇪🇸#spain #BasqueCountry 🇪🇺#europe 🚀#travel 🚐 #camperVan #nomad #roadTrip #vanLife

Gaztelugatxe is a rocky islet on the Atlantic coast of the southern Basque Country (📷1). We arrived early to the small top 🅿️ area, which rapidly filled; motorhomes aren’t allowed in the main area. Beware that entry tickets may be required at busy times (book online). The location is best known for its winding stone bridge (📷2) & staircase connecting the mainland to a hermitage perched on the rock. The medieval chapel, San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, dates back (in various forms) to at least the 10th C. & is dedicated to John the Baptist (📷3). Some visitors feel obliged to ring the chapel’s bell three times & make a wish. Some come to climb the 241 steps leading up to the chapel from the bridge, which served as the location of Dragonstone in the TV series “Game of Thrones”—although the chapel was of course digitally replaced with a faux castle (📷4). It’s a fairly steep 3km return to the top 🅿️.

🇪🇸#spain #BasqueCountry 🇪🇺#europe 🚀#travel 🚐 #camperVan #nomad #roadTrip #vanLife

Our first stop in southern Basque Country was to be Donostia | San Sebastián, but after a stressful tour of the city looking for open-air 🅿️ (we’re 3m tall) we gave up & left—without Basque cheesecake from La Viña. Westward to Zumaia, specifically Flysch de Zumaia, a cliff formation of near vertical strata within the UNESCO Geoparkea Zumaia. These strata formed from sediment/ shells that spent 50M years under the sea between Iberia & the European continent until their collision uplifted the flysch layers (marl, limestone & sandstone). At the eastern end of the beach is the Paleocene–Eocene Boundary, where 56M yrs ago a large release of greenhouse gases caused a 5-10°C temperature increase; the adjacent strata march down into the sea (📷1). Moving back in time, towards the middle of the beach are the Selandian–Thanetian Stratotype at 59.2M yrs ago, when Earth’s magnetic poles flipped polarity, & the Danian–Selandian Stratotype at 61.6M yrs ago, when sea level dropped ~80m; you can walk right up to these strata below San Telmo chapel (📷2). Ascend to the chapel & walk along the cliff (📷3); at the end of the rocky headland is the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K–Pg) Boundary, marked by a thin dark layer (📷4). This layer is rich in iridium, corresponding to the Chicxulub asteroid impact in the Yucatan 66M years ago that wiped out ~75% of Earth’s biota—most famously the non-avian dinosaurs. The return route notes that every one of your steps equates to the passage of about 500,000 yrs in geologic time. That’s a small step for a human; a giant step for humankind (less than 1 step = modern humans; 5 steps = the span of our existence in the Homo genus).

🇪🇸#spain #BasqueCountry 🇪🇺#europe 🚀#travel 🚐 #camperVan #nomad #roadTrip #vanLife 🛘#nature 🌍#unesco

'Anticipatory #AI Governance within #Gipuzkoa: #ActionResearch for a #DigitalInclusion Strategy in the #BasqueCountry' paper already delivered in #AAG2026

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6433343

#Preprints

https://zenodo.org/records/18915268

https://preprints.org/manuscript/202603.0727

📸 Basque Country

#basque #montagne #nature #beautiful #france #euskadi #basquecountry #love #photography