The languages of Bilbao

“The universal language in Bilbao is eating and drinking,” my guide Sylvia said. Our group gave an appreciative chuckle. We were in Plaza Nueva in the heart of the old town (Casco Viejo). The neo-classical square is full of bars and restaurants tucked into the colonnades. It’s lively any time of day but especially at lunch and dinner.

The main building on Plaza Nueva is the academy (Euskaltzaindia) that researches and protects the Basque language Euskara. The origins of this pre-European language are unknown. For generations it was passed down orally. Now children learn Euskara in public school. Curiously you don’t hear it spoken much in Bilbao compared to elsewhere in the País Vasco (of course I heard AUPA! plenty at the football game). You are more likely to hear Castilian (Spanish). Sylvia explained this is because of Bilbao’s industrial past.

Up until the 1970s Bilbao was a major industrial centre for the mining, production and shipping of iron. My guide described the former city as “dirty, grey, ugly”. Mining in nearby mountains has ceased (I saw defunct mining infrastructure in Picos) and the factories are gone. The Ria Nervion is no longer a shipping route to the sea. It now curves pleasantly through the city with plenty of walking paths and interesting bridges crossing from bank to bank.

The arrival of the Guggenheim Museum in the late 1990s kicked off Bilbao’s transformation. It’s been labelled “the Guggenheim effect”. The modern marvel designed by Canadian architect Frank Gehry is incredible. It’s a sensory extravaganza. Seriously. I felt dizzy touring the exhibits on the ground floor.

The museum is a huge draw to Bilbao but the city is so much more.

We started the tour in front of Teatro Arriaga, a flamboyant baroque style theatre. It was named after the child prodigy composer born in Bilbao, Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, known as the Spanish Mozart at the time (he died very young at 19). Stopping at plaza Miguel de Unamuno we learned about another famed Bilbaíno. Miguel de Unamuno was a prolific writer and philosopher who left his mark at Salamanca University. The statue to this philosopher is unusual; it’s simply his head atop a very tall column so it looks like he is floating in the clouds.

We wandered the narrow streets of the old town stopping at ancient fountains, notable buildings and the original seven streets (Siete Calles) that date back to the 1400s. I appreciated learning about features I never would have noticed on my own, such as the plaques on some buildings denoting the height water rose from devastating floods in 1983. The plaques are over 10 feet up.

I particularly liked the Txikitero’s Box. Txikitero means a person going bar hopping, traditionally drinking from small wine glasses. The tradition is to deposit spare change in this box after going out for a round of drinks. At the end of the year the money collected is used for a community project.

A round of drinks in Bilbao will inevitably include food.

Which brings us back to food and drink, the universal language of Bilbao. Even if you don’t speak Castilian or Euskara, you will have good time in Bilbao.

The food is crazy good.

My second tour was a pincho tour. This was a whole other type of sensory extravaganza. Pinchos are snack sized bites, often served on a toasted slice of baguette. My guide Olaia was amazing. While I did some pincho hopping on my own, it was a real treat to have Olaia take our small group of five to her favourite places and order her favourite bites. Besides telling us all about the food and drinks, she was a lot of fun.

Walk into any bar in Bilbao and you see these tantalizing snacks on the bar top. But those are not all the pinchos on offer. You can also order hot pinchos made to order. You just have to find the menu! With Olaia, we had both types, but more often she ordered a hot pincho, like a grilled octopus and shrimp skewer, red tuna with braised pearl onions or curry spiced lamb cooked over coals. The later was served in the beautiful moorish style dining room at Cafe Iruña.

We sampled traditional pinchos that you can find at most any bar in Bilbao. These included a gilda (olives, anchovies, and pickled peppers on a toothpick that you eat on one bite), a chorizo-like sausage chistorra and bacalao pil-pil. Pil-pil sauce is a Basque specialty. It’s an emulsion of olive oil, garlic and the natural juices and gelatin of the codfish. As the ingredients are whisked together quickly over heat the sauce makes a popping sound: pil-pil, pil-pil, pil-pil.

These classic pinchos were all tasty.

And then chefs in Bilbao have run wild with their creativity. They innovate. Experiment. We had a “soup” made with local idiazabal cheese with a poached quail egg that you broke with the spoon as you stirred everything together. Another was a cream cheese and salmon mixture topped with mango served to look like an egg. The care that goes into creating this miniature cuisine is phenomenal.

The drink selection was also fantastic. All beverages were from the Basque region, which I learned goes beyond the borders of País Vasco. We had a vibrant pink rosé from Navarra (a separate autonomous community, Pamplona is the capital) and a red wine from Rioja from the Aleva province that straddles both autonomous communities. I love a geography lesson given via wine! I also loved the local white wine txacoli. It was crisp and tangy with the slightest fizz. We also tried our hand at pouring Basque cider. It’s a similar technique as Asturian cider but there is a hole in the cork so you have a bit more control, though I still made a mess of it!

Were these drinks any good? Of course they were. Or in the words of Olaia, my Basque guide:

“Basque is better.”

When you are somewhere where the people take great pride and care in the food and drink they prepare, it’s a happy place. And I felt incredibly lucky to be there.