Our (almost) last stop in Europe for 2024 was in Bilbao, Spain. This might seem a little odd to you, but that is where the cheapest airfare back to the States originated from, hence our visit. While we were in Bilbao we took the opportunity to visit the old town and the Guggenheim Museum.
Getting There
Since we had picked up a car in San Sebastian a few days earlier, getting to Bilbao was a breeze. We took a 90-minute drive along the coast, admiring the sea and nature views along the way. Getting to our hotel was a little confusing, but we eventually worked it out.
Honestly, we would have been better off skipping the car because taking a train from San Sebastian would have been cheaper and easier. We had expected to investigate the area by car, but that didn’t happen since we only spent two nights in town and wanted to spend the day in between checking out the old town.
Our Hotel in Bilbao
While not quite as stunning as our prior hotel in San Sebastian, the place Diana found was the comfortable and centrally located Hotel Ericilla de Bilbao, Autograph Collection. Good restaurants were nearby, and it was an easy walk to the old town. The place was lively, hosting a college reunion of a bunch of Dutchmen. I kept running into them all over town.
One fun benefit I found at the hotel was a free wine-tasting event early one evening. The ladies hosting it were promoting local wine made from an indigenous grape varietal, Txakoli. While I enjoyed the event and learning about the local wine history and industry, the wine itself was not notable. Terroir seemed to be a challenge for them, and there is probably a reason no one has tried to grow Txakoli elsewhere.
Why Visit Bilbao?
Frankly, what put Bilbao on our radar was the Guggenheim Museum, exactly as the city promoters hoped when they managed to wrangle it 30-plus years ago. However, proximity and money were the key drivers that brought us to Bilbao this year.
We knew we would be spending the latter part of our European tour in Bordeaux this season, and I went looking for a way to fly back to the US for less dough and fewer hops. I found that TAP Air Portugal was offering one-way, lie flat seats from Bilboa to the US with an overnight in Lisbon for only $1100 each. Since we wanted to see the museum anyway and Bilbao is relatively close to Bordeaux, it made the decision easy. Enabling a brief stop in San Sebastian was like getting one of their complimentary pintxos with my favorite beverage on top of it all.
History of Bilbao
While investigating the town, I was surprised to learn the population of the metro area is over 1 million people. The old town is fairly compact, and its size belies all of the people living around it. As we often do, we opted for a tip-driven GuruWalk tour and learned a lot about Bilboa’s history.
The town has had a couple of classic boom and bust cycles over time. Bilbao’s attractive location and port led to the founding of the city in 1300 and contributed to its growth. Wealth accumulation kicked into high gear with the discovery and inception of the iron trade in the 1600s. Bilboa’s iron industry grew enormously and led to the creation of the Bank of Bilbao in 1857, now known as BBVA, a global financial institution.
The guide shared information about two other recent events. The first was in 1983, when the Nervión River flooded up to 15 feet beyond its bank, causing widespread damage. To mitigate future flood damage, some buildings relocated their entries to a higher floor, making for some unusual doorways. The second was a visit in 1929 by Queen Victoria Eugenia, where hundreds of special glasses were made with extremely thick bases to serve as lamps for her passage. Rather than throw them away, local bars repurposed them to serve drinks. As you can see in the pictures below, they are a bit odd.
Despite its prior wealth, by the 1990s, Bilbao had fallen into a familiar pattern of a post-industrial slum as the shanties of former iron workers fell into disrepair. Revitalization efforts, led by the presence of the new Guggenheim Museum, successfully turned the local economy around.
The Guggenheim Museum
There is an intriguing story we learned on the tour about how the Guggenheim Museum wound up in Bilbao at all. Apparently, in the 1990s, the Guggenheim Foundation was looking to expand its European presence. Although there was an existing relationship with Venice, negotiations for a new museum there were not going well.
Bilbao got wind of the discussions and put together a compelling proposal that hinged on a substantial local investment paired with the fact that the new museum would not compete with other attractions, like it would if it were in a city already replete with museums. Bilbao and the Basque government were betting the museum would be a big draw to revitalize the regional economy via tourism.
The effort has been a smashing success, leading to the coining of the term “Bilbao Effect“. The museum draws over a million visitors a year. Other cities and museums, like the Louvre Abu Dhabi, have attempted and so far failed to match the Guggenheim’s impact in Bilbao.
The building itself is stunning and, for me, outcompetes the actual art in contains. While we did enjoy our visit to the museum and its current installations, I didn’t find it compelling enough to revisit for the art alone.
The Food in Bilbao
The pintxo parade we started in San Sebastian continued in Bilbao. We stopped at a couple of well-reviewed places and were not disappointed. One night, Diana chose not to grab dinner, so I ventured out in the rain and snagged a bar stool at a place called Bilb8, where I had a quick pintxo and one of my favorite Spanish dishes, rabo de toro (oxtail stew). It was wonderful.
I also partook in a local cocktail made of half red wine and half Coke. On a tour, I was told the drink was christened kalimotxo when it was promoted heavily by a couple of guys, Kalimero and Motxongo. It has since become a popular drink in Spain due to its simplicity and low cost. The mixture can also be found under different names in South Africa, Mozambique, Croatia, Serbia, North Macedonia, Chile, Austria, and the Czech Republic. I found it refreshing, even if it wasn’t refined. Another way to use some Three Buck Chuck, right?
Which museums are calling to you?
