A Spider, a River, and Bilbao

The cities offer their own kind of contrast on our hikes, and Bilbao, in particular, is a delight. The Nervión bends through it, and along its banks Frank Gehry's Guggenheim rises in curves of titanium — moody and dramatic, whatever the weather does that day.

Outside stands the spider. Louise Bourgeois's Maman — tall and strange on her thin iron legs — calls passersby to stop, to look up, to consider her as something more than a statue.

Two marvels of metal, standing in counterpoint to the green hills and hard coast of the Camino del Norte.