+ ON TOUR: La Rochelle, Bilbao, La Coruna and Le Havre

This month's ON TOUR needs to be read in conjunction with CRUISING, which features a seven night holiday trip from Southampton into a series of French and Spanish ports, each one visited by the Editor-in-Chief with four children in tow.  They enjoyed the short visits immensly, adding to their knowledge of our European neighbours.  Please go to CRUISING: EES and ETIAS + Royal Caribbean and children in this month's TNU.

La Rochelle

For whatever reasons RCCL advertises in their daily Cruise Compass La Rochelle as Bordeaux, very misleading.  It is 120 miles north of its fellow Bay of Biscay port.  

La Rochelle is known as the White City, because of its limestone façades that glow in the sunlight. It has many architectural and cultural attractions, including arcaded walkways, half-timbered houses, and grotesques gargoyles, all centred around what is today a massive yacht harbour known as Port Dauphine, the old port.  On a perfect summer’s day, blue skies and 25°C, a courtesy bus from our docking pier dropped us off in the centre of the city.  Around the port are numerous coffee shops and eating places, typically French and not part of multinational chains.

A short distance from the busy port area is Charruyer Park, a large public garden stretching for a couple of miles.  With a family trip in mind, a children’s playground and small animal park will delight the youngest with goats, geese and donkeys.

La Rochelle has over the years been the centre of Protestant France with a museum dedicated to its history.  In 1798 the Protestants of La Rochelle no longer had a place for worship – their Temple Saint-Eloy, built in 1630, was destroyed in 1685. They were then granted use of the former church of the Récollets Convent, built in 1691 “to the taste of the time” (that is in the Counter-Reformation style).

During WWII La Rochelle was a pivotal port for U-boats, including U-612 which feature in the award-winning 1981 film Das Boots (The Boat) and the 2018 tv series.  The real bunker occupied by the German commanders is in the heart of the city, just a short walk from the bus drop-off point.

A one-day cruise visit can only be a taster.  Both easyJet and Ryanair offer seasonal services from a variety of UK airports.

www.larochelle-tourisme.com


Bilbao

What is the link between Bilbao and Pittsburgh, besides the fact that they were once major mining towns, now very much into the 21st century.  

Strange as it may seem it is the American illustrator/designer pop artist Andy Warhol, born in the steel city and now very much the star of the amazing Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao’s top tourist attraction.

The Bilbao Guggenheim Museum is an academy of modern and contemporary art, controversial when created and still very newsworthy. It is one of several museums affiliated to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and features permanent and visiting exhibits of works by Spanish and international artists. It was inaugurated on 18 October 1997 by King Juan Carlos I of Spain, with an exhibition of 250 contemporary works of art. It is one of the largest museums in Spain.

The exhibition centre was the coming together of two needs.  Guggenheim wanted to expand, but the suggested sites, such as Berlin, Paris and Rome, already had museums en masse.  They would not support the project financially. 

Bilbao needed a new attraction. 

Not all agreed, particularly when it came to money, but eventually the local Basque Government agreed it would fund a Guggenheim museum to be built in Bilbao's decrepit port area covering the US$100m construction cost, to create a US$50m acquisitions fund, plus a one-time US$20m fee to the Guggenheim and to subsidize the museum's US$12m annual budget. In exchange, the foundation agreed to manage the institution, rotate parts of its permanent collection through the Bilbao museum and organize temporary exhibitions.  

A design competition for the building was won by the by the Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry and built alongside the Nervion River, which runs through the city to the Cantabrian Sea. A work of contemporary architecture, it has been hailed as a "signal moment in the architectural culture", because it represents "one of those rare moments when critics, academics, and the general public were all completely united about something", according to architectural critic Paul Goldberger. 

The museum was the building most frequently named as one of the most important works completed since 1980 in the 2010 World Architecture Survey among architecture experts.

Allow a minimum of two hours to get around and make sure you pick up a map of the building.  The artwork is not described/named and this can be confusing.  There is the inevitable bookshop and café.

When in Bilbao use the 50-minute City View bus tour which includes the Guggenheim.  Get off at the funicular for the wonderful Artxanda city view and also find time for a Pintxos, the Basque country’s equivalent of tapas in Plaza Nueva.

www.guggenheim.org

www.bilbaoturismo.net/BilbaoTurismo/en/oficinas-de-turismo


La Coruña

Once again with a docking point in the very centre of the city La Coruña proved to be an excellent choice for RCCL. This part of Spain, called Galicia, has a reputation for being wet but we were spared any rain. Fronting the port area is the appropriately named Avenida de la Marina with tall 19th-century houses, their façades almost entirely taken up by miradors, glazed balconies which enable the residents to admire the view while sheltered from the wind. This idea is now catching on with cruise ships.

Our initial target, with three children in tow, was the beach known as Playa del Orzam Andres, perhaps a ten-minute walk from the ship, and a very large spotlessly-clean expanse. The children dipped their feet into the water but the sand was best described as gritty. The next day, at Santander, 300 miles along the coast, and much the same setting except for glorious pure sand, the kids were only too happy to get really wet.

For €1.30 and a ten-minute ride, the Aquarium Finisterrae claims to be the largest interactive venture of its type in Europe with over 600 species from the Atlantic. It is ideal for kids. There are three open pools for seals, octopuses and other local species.

From here it is a 15-minute walk to the Tower of Hercules, a Roman lighthouse dating from the 2nd century AD, in the time of Trajan. Designed by the Portuguese architect Cayo Sergio Lupo, it was refurbished in 1788 by order of King Charles IV of Spain. It has a square ground plan and the light it casts is visible at sea from a distance of 32 miles. The tower is divided into three sections, each successively narrower, up to the lantern. There are a total of 242 steps leading to the top of the lighthouse.  Bookings can be taken.

www.turismo.gal/que-visitar/cidades/a-coruna?langId=en_US


Le Havre

Situated at the head of the River Seine, with the pretty fishing village of Honfleur opposite, Le Havre is popular with sea going cruise ships, and river ones too (See BTN 2 July 2018 ON TOUR: Paris to Paris on the Seine).  It is only 2½ hours by train to Paris.  With the Paralympics under way the French capital was suggested as a no-go for Americans on board.

In pre-war times Le Havre was the home of the liner Normandie.

Le Havre was devastated during the Normandy campaign and not taken by the Allies until September 1944.  The city has been largely rebuilt in a rather unimaginative style although the Hôtel de Ville overlooking the very pretty central square with its garden and water features is not unattractive.

From the cruise pier, with three large ships docked, it is a 20/30-minute walk to the centre of the city.  Le Havre transportation provided a regular bus service, your €7 ticket giving 24-hour use of the buses and metro.  This also included a funicular ride at the top of the town, but not well publicised.  And with good reason.  The short ride was straight into a tunnel emerging in a housing estate with very poor views.  We came straight back.

For some the target of the day was the fine beach opposite the Boulevard Albert, and others the rejuvenated former dock sheds near the cruise wharf, now a shopping centre.  There are two major structures – the local Notre Dame dating from the 16th century and the remarkable Eglise Saint Joseph, by the renowned architect Perret, a 107 metre high lantern tower with 12,768 pieces of multi-coloured glass.  It is just a little bit taller than the London Hilton in Park Lane.  The Museum of Modern Art Andre Malraux has the finest collection of impressionist paintings outside Paris.

www.lehavre-etretat-tourisme.com

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READERS' COMMENT

All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 200 words maximum

Susan Bing, Winchester, UK

Can I suggest that future reviews of this nature lists a selection of ship organised tours available at each port and the length and price. I plan a similar cruise.