Start from 36 curated places around Bilbao, ES, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Gure Toki
A Plaza Nueva pintxos bar that has won Basque Country pintxos competitions and is known specifically for its Idiazabal cheese soup pintxo, a remarkable single-bite delivery of the region's nutty sheep's milk cheese in concentrated form. The counter holds a range of creative cold and hot pintxos, and the quality and originality here exceed most competitors on the same square.
Sorginzulo
A Casco Viejo pintxos bar that won the award for best pintxos bar in the Basque Country and has continued to produce award-winning bites including a mini burger pintxo that won a separate Casco Viejo competition. The quality is high for the format and the bar is small — it fills fast at peak hours. One of the more inventive kitchens operating within the pintxo format.
Trails & outdoors
Nervión River Walk – Guggenheim to Casco Viejo
A 3km riverside walkway along the Nervión from the Guggenheim along the Abandoibarra waterfront to the Casco Viejo's Mercado de la Ribera, passing the Maritime Museum, the Isozaki towers, the Zubizuri pedestrian bridge and the Arriaga Theatre. The walk links the city's architectural landmarks in sequence and gives the best street-level understanding of Bilbao's transformation from industrial port to cultural capital.
Monte Artxanda – City Viewpoint Loop
A hilltop park above the city with a network of easy walking paths through pine forest and open meadow, reached in 3 minutes by funicular from the Casco Viejo. The summit gives a 360-degree view encompassing the river valley, the Guggenheim, the old town and the Cantabrian mountains. The loop around the summit park takes about 45 minutes and requires no navigational skill.
Things to do
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
The same building that sits in the sites section is Bilbao's principal cultural programme, with a changing roster of major international exhibitions alongside a permanent collection that includes Richard Serra's Torqued Ellipses — monumental rusting steel sculptures that fill the largest ground-floor gallery. The temporary programme shifts every few months and rewards a second visit.
Bilbao La Vieja Arts District
A neighbourhood across the river from the Casco Viejo that has evolved from a difficult post-industrial district into a dense cluster of art galleries, studio spaces, independent bars and music venues. The streets around Calle San Francisco and the riverbank hold the city's alternative cultural life — street art, small gallery openings, experimental music spaces — in contrast to the Guggenheim's institutional programme.
Landmarks & sights
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
Frank Gehry's titanium-clad landmark opened in 1997 and transformed Bilbao from an industrial port city in decline into one of Europe's most visited cultural destinations — the original 'Bilbao effect' of architecture-led urban regeneration. The permanent collection includes major works in the permanent galleries and the large-format pieces that need the enormous atrium to breathe. Puppy, the flower-covered steel terrier outside, has become the city's second logo after the museum itself.
Casco Viejo (Old Town)
The medieval core of Bilbao, the Siete Calles (Seven Streets), is a tight grid of 14th-century lanes on the riverbank opposite the Guggenheim that forms the city's pintxos and bar culture heartland. The Gothic Santiago Cathedral, the covered Mercado de la Ribera and the neoclassical Plaza Nueva are the formal landmarks, but the side streets with their stacked pintxos counters and wine-bar interiors are the actual destination.