Seeing Bilbao’s Guggenheim, Old Town and regeneration
Summary
Chances are that if you’re in Bilbao it’s for passing through on your way to some other destination in Spain, such as the nearby food wonders of San Sebastian (see tips here – Eating pintxos in San Sebastian) or the wine regions of Rioja (The Rioja Wine Region). But, it’s certainly worth giving yourself an afternoon to explore the city based on the super famous and quite astonishing exterior of the Guggenheim Museum; walking along the river to see the superb job Bilbao did with its urban regeneration; and for it’s underrated Old Town complete with plenty of restaurants serving the splendid Basque food. Whole town is underrated and certainly worth a visit
highlights
#1 Checking out the world-famous Guggenheim Museum, with its stunning outside design that is surprisingly cool to gorp at
#2 Walking along Bilbao's riverfront to see the urban regeneration - sounds geeky, but its impressive just how well they've taken what was an industrial ugly spot to what it is today
#3 The Old Town with its abundance of restaurants serving the splendid Basque food. Just as good, if less of an experience, as what you find in San Sebastian
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other unusual City Breaks around the World
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone