BILBAO, Spain (dpa) – Visitors contemplating the meaning of the famous iron sculpture “El Peine del Viento” (The Wind’s Comb) on the rocky coast in San Sebastian, often get a hand by Mother Nature.
In windy weather, stormy waves crash through the large hook-like sculptures and give onlookers a sudden soaking.The sculpture by Basque artist Eduardo Chillida, and the museum dedicated to his work in a converted farm in the town of Hernani just 16 kilometres (10 miles) away, attracts many cultural tourists to the northern seaside resort. But San Sebastian has been famous since the mid 19th century when Queen Isabella II of Spain spent her summers here.Yet the new Guggenheim Museum in the industrial city of Bilbao some 100 kilometres away has been a motor of tourism. More than a million visitors a year are attracted to the museum, which looks like a giant fish with daringly cut walls. Before the museum opened in 1997, tourism to Bilbao was limited, said Koro Garmendia, deputy minister for trade, industry and tourism in the city.A third destination for visitors touring the lush green landscape of northern Spain is Vitorio, the inland capital of the “autonomous Basque country”.For tourists arriving by air, the first stop is Bilbao. The city clearly bears the marks of its long history as a steel town, even though there are only 300 of the original 10,000 blast furnaces remaining. The city has a 20 per cent unemployment rate, says Ignacio Azcuna, the mayor. And then there are the activities of the underground Basque separatist organisation, ETA, which are part of Bilbao’s less positive inheritances, he says.Politicians are tackling their problems with a double strategy of prosecution and negotiation on the one hand, and economic renewal on the other. As well as the Guggenheim Museum, they have built a post- modern airport and a modern metro system.This businesslike city has a soft heart. The old town is blissfully peaceful: the noise of the city traffic gives way to human chatter in shops and cafes in the tiny old streets.
