Today, Silver Spirit is docked in Bilbao, Spain. I’ll be reporting more about our sunny day in Spain’s Basque Country after our visit to the Guggenheim Museum tonight. Meantime, browse Avid Cruiser’s Port Profile of Bilbao.
Have you been to Bilbao? If so when and what did you think of the region?
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Overview
Let’s start our tour of Spain’s tenth largest city with the Guggenheim Museum. It is an extraordinary building that one simply has to admire. But the story about the world-renowned museum goes deeper than the exterior: The Guggenheim Museum has been very important both to Bilbao and to the Basque region: It marked a break with a history sometimes dominated by financial difficulties.
Nowadays a true landmark both for Bilbao and for this part of Spain, the Guggenheim Museum has come to represent Basque culture and knowledge. There are those who argue that the museum with its titanium facade managed to turn a somewhat scrubby city into a star. Since the opening in 1997, more than one million visitors per year have paid the entry fee.
Bilbao’s pre-Guggenheim era was dominated by steelworks, yards and other port activities. For much of the 19th century and beginnings of the 20th century, Bilbao was the center of one of Spain’s most important industrial areas. But the city’s fortunes were to turn a different way.
Read Avid Cruiser’s full Port Profile featuring Bilbao.
