Bilbao Tour with Context: From the Old Town to the Guggenheim Museum

Today, Bilbao is a culture and contemporary art hub, with the Guggenheim Museum as its icon. But just 800 years ago, it was little more than a whaling village. On this walking tour with Basque local and Context Travel expert, Maria Martinez Salaverria, you’ll take in the city’s most impressive sites and discover its history along the way.

Starting in front of Mercado de la Ribera (the Ribera Market), you’ll learn about the city’s oldest bridge and church, San Anton, and the “Seven Streets“ connecting this port area with Santiago Cathedral, the monumental Gothic church in the heart of the Old Town. As you make your way to the iconic Guggenheim Museum where the tour ends, you’ll take in great views of Puente del Arenal (Arena Bridge) and Teatro Arriaga (Arriaga Theatre).

Maria will fill you in on the city’s humble river-port beginnings as you walk through the Old Town along the same ancient streets as pilgrims, soldiers and merchants. You’ll gain a deeper understanding of how a new industrial and bourgeois Bilbao flourished after 1850, in the middle of several civil wars.

You’ll dive into Franco’s dictatorship and the economic crisis in the 1970s when the city became a gray, polluted, and sad shell of what it once was. You’ll also hear how the Guggenheim became the great economic driver of the city, contributing to the extraordinary urban, economic, and social regeneration.

On this tour, you’ll:

• Dive into Bilbao’s deep whaling history and discover the many products harvested from whaling, including lamp fuel and baleen (used for fans, corsets, and umbrella ribs)
• Be shocked by the bombing of Bilbao's bridges, to prevent Franco's army from entering the city during the Spanish Civil War
• Delve into Arenal Square’s origins as a sandy water inlet, a boat dock, and a seat for shipyards until it was filled in 1754 to the level of today’s Bilbao City Hall
• Find out about the strong cultural and economic links between Spanish-speaking America and Basque Country
• Get a taste of Pintxos, the Basque speciality featuring small portions of high-quality, artistically presented food
• Learn how Frank Gehry, one of the most relevant and influential architects in the world, designed Bilbao’s daring, innovative and iconic Guggenheim Museum
• See pilgrims on the St. James Path, or el Camino de Santiago, and learn how it became the third European spiritual, cultural and commercial route after Rome and Jerusalem

By the end of this 90-minute tour, you’ll have a deeper understanding of the city’s recent transformation. You’ll uncover how, throughout the centuries, the city and its residents have shown their strong-as-iron will and admirable ability to adapt or perish.