Bilbao: A Self-Guided Tour from Old Town to the Guggenheim Museum

On this self-guided walking tour, you'll chart Bilbao's transformation from an ugly duckling to an art and culture icon.

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, you’ll take in the city’s most impressive sites and discover its history.

As you walk through the Old Town, Maria will tell you about the city’s humble river-port beginnings. You’ll gain a deeper understanding of how a new industrial and bourgeois Bilbao flourished after 1850, during several civil wars.

You’ll also dive into Franco’s dictatorship and the economic crisis in the 1970s when the city became a grey, 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.