Industrial history of Bilbao

With a few well-written exceptions, I don't tend to get much out of history books. Something gets lost for me-either in the transformation of real-life actions and events to the written word, or from the page to my imagination. I'd read bits of pieces of Bilbao's industrial history, but a boat trip down the Nervion on Friday has helped bring it all together into a soup of images and anecdotes that resonates much more than a list of dates and facts can.

It was a chilly grey morning, but at least it wasn't raining. The river was calm when I ( and a group of high school history students and teachers from Arrigorriaga) climbed onto a fishing boat the port of Santurtzi, where the river meets the ocean. The following hour, as we travelled downriver tot eh centre of Bilbao, was like a visit to a living museum. Historical houses that used to be the homes of rich factory owners. Functioning factories and abandoned ones. Shipbuilding facilities dwarfing the industrial warehouses-cum-artists' studios on the shore behind them. Rotting remnants of fishing docks that can't be removed for fear of stirring up the century-old toxic layer of debris on the riverbed. Old men fishing and joggers pushing strollers along the riverside promenade. The old warehouses and houses they're planning to tear down to build a Manhattan-esque island of luxury condos in the middle of the river. Scrap metal and cranes and abandoned train cars.

The students didn't really seem to care too much about what we were seeing, so I was the eager student the teachers were more than happy to share their knowledge with.