A river city rebuilt around art

Bilbao fills a narrow green valley along the Nervión estuary, a short way inland from the Bay of Biscay. For a century it lived from iron ore, steel and shipbuilding; when that work moved away, the city cleared its docks and started again. The metro designed by Norman Foster opened in 1995, the Guggenheim followed on a former dockside two years later, and the riverbanks became promenades. The hills are still there at the end of almost every street.

What makes Bilbao easy to like is its scale. The old town, the Casco Viejo, sits on the right bank around its seven original streets; the nineteenth-century Ensanche spreads across the left bank with wide avenues and the shops of the Gran Vía. The Arenal bridge joins the two, Santiago Calatrava’s white Zubizuri footbridge crosses a little further downstream, and the tram and the metro cover everything else.

Eating is the other reason to come. Pintxos are laid out along bar counters from late morning: a gilda of olive, anchovy and pickled green pepper, salt cod in pil-pil sauce, a wedge of tortilla. The custom is to take one or two with a small glass of txakoli, the dry, lightly sparkling white wine of the Basque coast, and then move on to the next bar. Rain is frequent, and nobody minds.