We started off our final Wednesday in Bilbao by visiting the company Tekniker, an engineering company located in the forests of the Basque country. This company was extremely different than others we visited since they host a large variety of engineering disciplines ranging almost every variety you could ask for. I found this company absolutely amazing as they work behind the scenes for other companies on a variety of projects at a time. In fact, employees here work on four or five projects at a time! As an engineering student, this sounds like a dream since we are often given extremely intensive single projects that can be draining. Tekniker also stood out since they are a small company, but they focus on the quality of life of their employees more than most large companies do.
Following our visit, we traveled to the Oma painted forest. We were all excited to see the art, but we were not prepared for the condition of the trails. Due to the large amount of rain Bilbao has seen over the past few days, the path was extremely muddy, so it was a little difficult to make it to our destination. Once we did, we enjoyed lunch in the forest and then walked around the path to see the painted trees. If you stood at certain spots along the path, the art on the trees would align into one large picture!
Our last stop of the day was in the historic city of Gernika. This city is extremely important to the history of the Basque country as it was bombed by German troops during the Spanish Civil War as the people here spoke Basque and refused to follow the orders of the opposition. We viewed a section of Pablo Picasso’s famous painting Gernika and visited the inside of a real bomb shelter as well as other buildings in the city. It was a great visit to an extremely important place.
We ended our night with tacos and gelato nearby, taking in one of our last days in Spain.
