Bilbao, Spain Mini Guide
Bilbao Spain is a north eastern port and industrial city some 11km (7 miles) south of the Bay of Biscay, to which it is linked by the canalised River Nervion. It exports iron ore, lead and wine and is capital of the Basque province of Vizcaya.
If you were to say only a decade ago that Bilbao was destined to become an international art Mecca, the select few who had ever visited the place would have laughed in your face. Bilbao meant rusty old steel mills and shipping. Travellers who weren't there on business didn't linger, unless they got lost in the maddening traffic system. Getting lost, however, would have allowed more people to appreciate Bilbao's uncommon setting, tucked in the lush green folds of Euskadi's coastal mountains, the grimy city filling up every possible pocket for miles along the Nervi6n, a notorious industrial by-product of a river, adopting the colour of chocolate milk or robin's-egg blue, depending on the day.
The name is Bilbo in Basque, just like the hobbit, but its inhabitants lovingly call it the Botxo, the Basque word for hole or orifice.
The orifice was originally a scattering of fishing hamlets huddled on the left bank of a deep ria, where the hills offered some protection from the Normans and other pirates. In 1300, when the coast was clear of such dangers, the lord of Vizcaya, Diego L6pez de Haro, founded a new town on the right bank of the Ria de Bilbao. It quickly developed into the Basques' leading port and Spain's main link to northern Europe, exporting Castile's wool to Flanders and the swords Shakespeare called bilbos. ln 1511 the merchants formed a council to govern their affairs, the Consulado de Bilbao, an institution that survived and thrived until 1829.
The 19th century had various tricks in store: the indignity of a French sacking in 1808 and sieges by the Carlists in both of their wars; Bilbao was the 'martyr city' of the Liberal cause. But the 19th century also made Bilbao into a great industrial dynamo. Blessed with its fabled iron mountain, nearby forests, cheap hydraulic power and excellent port, Bilbao got a double dose of the Industrial Revolution.
Steel mills, shipbuilding and other industries sprang up, quickly followed by banks and insurance companies and all the other accoutrements of capitalism. Workers from across the country poured into gritty tenements, and smoke clogged the air. It became the fourth city of Spain, and still is; it looks like Spain's Pittsburgh, and back at the turn of the century it was just as full of worker misery and exploitation. Social activism combined with Basque nationalism created a sturdy anti-fascist cocktail; during the Civil War, Bilbao was besieged again and Franco punished it crushingly.
Then, in the late 1950s, Bilbao was whipped forward to become once more the industrial powerhouse of Spain, but on an artificial life-support system that was unplugged in the new Spain of the EU. The iron mines gave out. In the 1980s, unemployment soared from six per cent to 20 per cent.
Something had to be done to save the Botxo from becoming a real hole, and the Basques found the political will to do it. Thanks to banking, insurance and such less obviously dirty business, the economy was doing pretty well in spite of all the lay-offs, and this has allowed the city to embark on an ambitious redevelopment programme, reclaiming vast areas of the centre formerly devoted to heavy industry. The rusting machinery has been removed and the once-seedy dock area gentrified. The hugely popular Guggenheim Museum (see p.281), which opened in October 1997, has by itself significantly boosted the city's prestige. Other new projects include cleaning up the Nervf6n (it even has a few fish now), a concert hall and convention centre (completed in 1998), and a library, a park, a hotel, offices and residential buildings all being built on the site of the old shipyards .
A 'passenger interchange', which will put local and international bus and train services under one enormous roof, is planned, and the metro, with sleek, modern stations designed by Sir Norman Foster, was completed in 1995. The airport got an elegant new terminal designed by Santiago Calatrava in December 2000. And the capacity of the harbour has been doubled as part of a vast expansion project, making this one of the most important ports in Spain. New industries are being enticed here, too-the European Software Institute has based its headquarters in the 37 acre technology park in nearby Zamudio. Bilbao is shaping up to become one of the cities of Europe's future; come back in a few years and see.
Since the 1980s, major developments have taken place along the Nervi6n, and the evenings see the Bilbainos stream in to stroll along its banks in a pleasant riverfront park. Halfway along, the billowing, glass-floored Zubi Zuri ('white bridge') sails over