Spain
Bilbao & Getxo — Boutique Hotels & Travel Guide
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Bilbao is the Basque Country's largest city and its industrial heart — a formerly gritty port city that reinvented itself through architecture and culture in the 1990s and has never looked back. The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, designed by Frank Gehry and opened in 1997, is the building that launched a thousand urban regeneration projects and remains one of the great works of contemporary architecture. The old town — the Casco Viejo — is a dense grid of pintxos bars and traditional Basque life that the Guggenheim visitors often miss entirely.
Perché visitare Bilbao & Getxo
The Guggenheim is genuinely extraordinary — not just the building but the collection inside, which rotates regularly and consistently features the best contemporary art in Spain. The Casco Viejo's Siete Calles are the best bar streets in the Basque Country outside San Sebastián. Getxo, at the mouth of the estuary, has a beautiful Victorian promenade and the Vizcaya Bridge — a UNESCO-listed transporter bridge that has been carrying passengers across the estuary since 1893.
I migliori borghi di Bilbao & Getxo
Explore All Towns in Bilbao & Getxo
Quando visitare
Bilbao works year-round — it is a functioning city with a strong cultural calendar. The Aste Nagusia festival in August is one of the great Basque celebrations. The Guggenheim is most enjoyable on weekday mornings when the tour groups are absent.
Nova Insider
The Mercado de la Ribera on the bank of the Nervión — the largest covered market in Europe — is best visited on a Saturday morning when the Basque producers bring their best produce from the surrounding countryside. Buy txakoli wine from the bodega on the upper floor, take it to the bar at the back, and drink it looking out over the river. It costs almost nothing and is one of the most quietly Basque experiences available in the city.
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Basque Country — Boutique Hotels & Travel Guide