EUSKADI: BILBAO ~ Beautiful places of Barcelona and Catalonia

viernes, 31 de julio de 2009

EUSKADI: BILBAO

After spending two lovely days in Cantabria visiting Santander, Comillas and Santillana del Mar, we went to Basque Country for three days. In this post I would like to show you some pictures of the places we visited in Bilbo (Bilbao), which were:

Portugalete
Santurtzi
Guggenheim Museum in Bilbo
Old city of Bilbo

We spent the following two days in Gipuzkoa, visiting Donostia (San Sebastián) and Hondarribi (Hondarribia).

Monday, the 27th july 2009

We began our first day in the Basque Country walking along the Bilbao ria. We had our hotel in Portugalete, next to a famous suspension bridge

Portugalete

The Bizkaia transporter bridge links Portugalete with the town of Getxo, on the Right Bank of the estuary. This impressive iron construction is still the most popular method used for crossing the 160 metres from bank to bank, and has been declared World Industrial Heritage Monument

Santurtzi

Oriol Palace is without any doubt the most beautiful building of Santurtzi. Built in 1902, this building is now a hotel

We saw this mirror and we couldn't help taking a photo :)

This is the Bilbao ria. In the background, the town of Santurtzi. There is a promenade which led us to this fishing town

Portugalete

This semicircular arch in the old quarter of Portugalete was part of a Renaissance palace

Another picture of the transporter bridge from the old town. Built in1893, it was the first of its kind to be built in the world as the need to allow large ships upriver meant that a conventional bridge could not be built. Indeed, today, there are only nine still working throughout the world

The colourful Tourism office of Portugalete and Santa Maria Churh on the right in the old quarter. The old quarter is still home to unique buildings and interesting relics of the past

A panoramic view of Portugalete. The yellow building on the right was our hotel

Our hotel was really close to the transporter bridge :) We used it to go to Getxo, just in the other bank of the ria, and I was really surprised because you don't feel at all that you are almost flying over the ria

Bilbo (Bilbao)

The Guggenheim museum is the main cultural visit to do in Bilbao

This huge spider is next to the museum and the ria of Bilbao

The ria is a really suitable environment to walk from the Guggenheim to the old quarter of Bilbao. In this picture, the bridge of Zubi Zuri

The New Square in the old quarter of Bilbao

Clicking on the next link you will find more pictures of the beautiful places and villages we visited in Guipúzcoa, like Donostia (San Sebastián) o Hondarribi (Hondarribia).

Finally, other beautiful places you can visit in Spain are:

- Catalonia

- Basque Country