Only an hour’s drive south of Bilbao, Vitoria-Gasteiz has yet to feel the Guggenheim Effect. This little-visited city – home to the Basque Parliament, and de facto capital of the autonomous Basque Country – has one of northern Spain’s best-preserved Casco Viejos (old towns).And with free museums, bargain pintxos and fine Riojan wines, Vitoria-Gasteiz is a world-class city break without the crowds of San Sebastian, just over an hour away.
Plaza Virgen Blanca is among the city’s most scenic portions (Photo: Getty)“People assume Vitoria-Gasteiz is boring. Even Spanish tourists have never heard of it,” tour guide Leire Cameno said when I met her in the Plaza de España. She explained how, because it is not as well-known as Basque Country favourites such as Bilbao and San Sebastian, people assume there’s not much to do.
if(window.adverts) { window.adverts.
addToArray({"pos": "inread-hb-ros-inews"}); }“But I love it here. It’s always quiet. There’s no traffic.
There are parks and green spaces everywhere,” she said.Around the edges, it is unassuming and looks like a flat-pack Ikea town, where electric trams weave silently around colourful apartment blocks overlooking wide, green boulevards.But Vitoria-Gasteiz is a tale of two cities.
Not just in a cultural sense – given you’ll see and hear the Basque language, a language older than any other in Europe, alongside Spanish – but because the modern suburbs, connected by more than 19 miles of cycling and walki.
