Just seen this travel piece on Bilbao.

http://tra.velne.ws/view/bilbao-a-sp...ds-its-swagger

I've had short stays in Bilbao before, but I'm wondering if anyone here has had a longer spell in the city? Is it worth staying more than a night or two? The rain, and the cost of accommodation are probably the downsides?

Apart from the Guggenheim (which I reckon is better seen from the outside only!), what else is there to do?
I'd recommend any of the following:
*stroll along the river to the area around the "siete calles" area & savour the pintxos in the Plaza de España
*just off the Gran Via is Cafe Iruña, with marvellous tile work & wooden ceiling in Moorish style
*good bars for tortilla are Bar Izaro, quite small, near Indautxu, & Cafeteria Concha in calle General Concha

After that, I'd say use Bilbao as a base for example:
* to go to Donosti (San Sebastian) by train or coach
* to climb Amboto (1300m), the other side of Durango, beginning in Urkiola; takes a good 3 hours to the top
* visit Zarautz with a lovely promenade, beach & good surfing waves
* visit Guernica; market day is Monday
* could even nip to St Jean de Luz in France, just round the corner
* visit Fuenterrabia (Hondarribia in Basque) & have a drink in the imposing Parador

Hope that helps.

We spent 3 nights in Bilbao in June (flew from Malaga with Vueling) and really enjoyed it. The weather was surprisingly warm, we just had some light drizzle on the morning of our last day but otherwise it was sunny and hot.

We stayed at the Apartamentos Turisticos Edificio de Santiago (booked via www.booking.com) which came to €90 per night, we found that good value for a city centre location and were allocated a 2 bedroom apartment instead of the 1 bed we had booked. Very comfortable and unbelievably quiet.

We didn't go inside the Guggenheim, sharing Retired in Euzkadi's view! But we did visit the Museo de Bellas Artes which we enjoyed, as well as some of the other places on his list. One day we took the bus (a 1 hour journey with no stops) to San Sebastian which is really beautiful, I am already investigating accommodation there for a return visit next year.

Blimey, €90 per night sounds like Parador prices! Mind you, have never stayed in a hotel in Bilbao, but there must be cheaper & more reasonable ones, surely??

I just checked prices for the same dates next June, and there were a couple of places at cheaper rates which had a higher approval rating from previous guests, but that's all. And only one of them was a studio, we prefer to stay in apartments when we can as we like to have the extra space and the ability to make a coffee in the mornings and keep a bottle of wine in the fridge.

I hate the damned place.
It's just a giant bottleneck squashed in between the mountains and the sea making it difficult to get to the nicer places further West or back to S.W. France.
They can't extend it North or South so they keep extending it even further along the coast constantly making the bottleneck even longer and worse.
I have stopped off occasionally but can't say I was impressed with either the place or the ppl, though maybe that's just me, as I hate most big cities anyway.

I spent a week there, mainly for the BBK festival
Guggenheim was good and I quite enjoyed the free days we had there. We stayed up on the hills overlooking the city.

I'd certainly recommend it. We stayed at the Hotel Artetxe, you'd need to have a car to get down into the town, but iirc it was €45 a night. There were a number of restaurants in the park area near to the hotel, and it was quite busy there at night

I can't understand why anyone would want to stay in the City when there are so many nice places close by

If you're not travelling by car (and not everyone does), the cities are easier to get to and it makes more sense to base yourself there and take trips to surrounding places, rather than be stuck somewhere not very accessible and where you won't have access to as wide a range of restaurants, shops and transport options. In our case the need to find restaurants serving vegetarian food is also important, more chance of finding them in a city.

And I like cities anyway! Each to their own, I find small villages or the countryside rather boring if I'm there for more than a few hours.

That's why we stayed in the hotel we chose, because it wasn't "in the city".