Some Great Things To Do In Bilbao, Spain – As Told By Lisa!
Exploring Northern Spain, are you? What about a stop in Bilbao? Bilbao is a city full of history, character, and Basque country culture with plenty of free, historic, and even weird things to do and check out!
Here at Penguin and Pia, Bilbao has a special place in Lisa’s heart. She lived and studied abroad therefor a few months. While it’s not as well known as Barcelona, Málaga or Sevilla, it’s a beautiful Spanish city that she fell in love with – and we’ll try to show you why. She also really wants to take Eric there to see it and he’s totally fine with that.
So, whether you are staying in Bilbao for a few days or passing through from San Sebastián, you’re sure to find plenty of things do to – whatever month you visit. From the Casco Viejo (old town) to the Guggenheim Museum, just grab yourself a map, this article, and head out to explore Bilbao!
Things to Consider When Visiting Bilbao
If you are thinking about heading to Bilbao when you are in Spain, here are a few need-to-know trip planning details to help you out! We cover language, culture, getting around, where to stay, and more!
General Information About Bilbao
The sunset from Artxanda Lookout is usually stunning…
Bilbao is located in Northern Spain in a region called Basque country. This is an autonomous region from Spain – and the people are very proud to be Basque. Similarly to Catalonia, the Basque country has its own language, culture, and identity that co-exists with the Spanish culture and language.
Lots of people speak Euskera in addition to Castellano (the “normal” Spanish) in Bilbao. If you learn a few words in Euskera people will be super happy. A few simple words are these two: Agur is “bye” and Eskerrik asko means “thank you”.
That said, the city has changed a lot over the last few decades. This is largely attributed to the “Guggenheim Effect” – and we will talk about this a little further down!
Best Time to Visit Bilbao
Like we said, Bilbao is a city in the Northern part of Spain. This means that it doesn’t usually get as hot as cities in the south of Spain such as Sevilla or the capital Madrid (which doesn’t have any ocean breeze close by). Bilbao’s location makes it nice to visit even during the hotter summer months.
If you can, we would recommend visiting at the end of August during the Semana Grande. Literally meaning “Big Week”, this celebration is over a week-long and basically one massive street party/festival with loads of different music and festivities happening!
Generally, you can visit Bilbao year round but it is nicest from March to September. It can rain quite a lot during the winter months so it would be the wisest choice to avoid that time. When Lisa lived there, it was actually one of the nicest winters in a very long time with very few rainy days. But locals often made it clear that this was an exception!
Getting Around in Bilbao
Since Bilbao isn’t a huge city you can walk pretty much anywhere if you want to. However, there is also a great metro and tram system that the inhabitants are quite proud of. A word of advice, though: don’t try to eat OR drink in the metro – people don’t like that.
If you are staying longer than a couple of days and plan on taking the public transport frequently, you can get a Barik Card at a ticket machine. This is just a reusable “tap” card which you use to pay for your journey. Here is the website for the metro to learn more.
Since there are quite a few hills, there are also lots of escalators in the city as well as a funicular. To be honest, these days it is more of a tourist attraction – and we’ll mention it further down.
Where to Stay in Bilbao
The architecture is varied in the city – but it’s very beautiful!
Bilbao isn’t a huge city, but it has a good number of accommodation options. A couple of Lisa’s friends have previously stayed at the Hotel NH Bilbao Deusto and had a good experience. However, it isn’t close to the Old Town so you might opt for another hotel closer such as Ercilla Hotela if you only have a limited amount of time in the city.
To make it easier for yourself, we would recommend that you don’t stay anywhere too high up since since walking up steep hills at the end of an exhausting day might not be the most fun. You can check here for Bilbao accommodations – and remember to try to stay close to the river or the Old Town!
If you are looking for a cheap place to stay, you should check out Bcool Hostel. It was highly recommended by Mike and Sue of 197 Travel Stamps in our unique hostels in Europe post.
Great Things To Do In Bilbao, Spain
Okay, so now that you have all the information – let’s get to checking out the things to do in Bilbao. This list is in no particular order, so don’t feel like you have to go top to bottom. However, okay, you should probably cross #1 off the “done” list early!
Visit The Guggenheim Museum
The famous Guggenheim in all its glory!
Let’s begin with the most popular tourist attraction. The Guggenheim museum is difficult to miss with its impressive exterior. It is a museum of Modern and Contemporary Art which was inaugurated in 1997. Since then, it has played a very important role in shaping the city.
Some people even talk about the “Guggenheim effect”, which refers to how the museum helped to transform the city. By attracting lots of visitors to Bilbao, the city’s economy was fueled and shifted away from declining industries such as iron, steel, and shipbuilding to a more service-industry focused city.
Lisa has been in there a couple of time and would recommend it to anyone who has more than one day in the city. There are some interesting exhibitions in the museum which you might enjoy even when you are usually not a big fan of art museums.
Walk Through The Old Town (Casco Viejo)
The beautiful Town Hall building close to the edge of the Old Town
The old town of Bilbao is beautiful – and admittedly, it is quite easy to get lost in. Even at the end of her time in Bilbao, Lisa still sometimes got disoriented when wandering through the old town.
The old town is centered around Las Siete Calles, Spanish for “The Seven Streets”, which have existed since the 15th century. We would recommend to just wander through the small, charming streets and see what you can find. It is a pedestrian-only area so you don’t have to worry about cars.
There are some chain clothing stores but also quite a few interesting independent shops. You can also find lots of nice cafes and ice cream places in this part of town which are perfect for taking a rest in the afternoon. We’d recommend one or two by Lisa honestly can’t remember where exactly they were – so that’s our challenge for you!
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