DAY TOUR, BILBAO: GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM & ARCHITECTURE IN BILBAO, A WALKING TOUR

The Guggenheim Museum – a gleaming, floating icon of world architecture designed by modern American master Frank Gehry. Our art historian meets you below that fantastical façade before guiding you through the collections inside. Highlights include Richard Serra’s monumental sculpture A Matter of Time, a huge arrangement of spirals and ellipses that suggest some kind of portal into the mysteries of the cosmos. 

Next, take a walk along the river to see other examples of Bilbao’s recent structural masterpieces, including Calatrava’s Zubizuri bridge, the Chavarri Palace and Norman Foster’s acclaimed metro station entrance. Moving from the present into the deep past, the city’s medieval core, or Casco Viejo, is dominated by the 14th-century Santiago Cathedral, where you’ll stop in for a visit, and the bustling Mercado de la Ribera.