Things to do
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Casco Viejo
Seven old streets behind the cathedral hold the pintxo bars that Basque eating is built on, counters loaded by seven in the evening and cleared before ten. Custom is a single bite and a small glass in each bar, then a move along the row. The Ribera market at the river end and the Sunday flower and bird stalls are the other draws.
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Guggenheim Museum
Titanium curves by Frank Gehry turned a derelict riverfront into the reason many visitors come to Bilbao at all, and the building tends to outshine what hangs inside it. Richard Serra's steel ellipses fill the long gallery permanently, while the rest rotates. Circling the exterior along the Nervion, past the spider and the flower terrier, is free and takes half an hour.
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San Juan de Gaztelugatxe
A stone stairway of more than two hundred steps climbs a rocky islet on the Biscay coast to a tiny hermitage, reached by a hump-backed bridge from the mainland. Access runs on a timed free permit booked online, with a bus or a drive of about an hour from the city and a long descent to the bridge. Wind and rain close it.