Sights in Aragón, Basque Country & Navarra
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Museo Guggenheim
Opened in September 1997, Bilbao’s Museo Guggenheim lifted modern architecture and Bilbao into the 21st century – with sensation. It boosted the city’s already inspired regeneration, stimulated further development and placed Bilbao firmly in the world art and tourism spotlight.
Some might say, probably quite rightly, that structure overwhelms function here and that the Guggenheim is more famous for its architecture than its content. But Canadian architect Frank Gehry’s inspired use of flowing canopies, cliffs, promontories, ship shapes, towers and flying fins is irresistible.
Like all great architects, Gehry designed the Guggenheim with historical and geographical…
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Casco Viejo
The compact Casco Viejo, Bilbao’s atmospheric old quarter, is full of charming streets, boisterous bars and plenty of quirky and independent shops. At the heart of the Casco are Bilbao’s original seven streets, Las Siete Calles, which date from the 1400s.
The 14th-century Gothic Catedral de Santiago has a splendid Renaissance portico and pretty little cloister. Further north, the 19th-century arcaded Plaza Nueva is a rewarding pintxo (Basque tapas) haunt. There’s a lively Sunday-morning flea market here, which is full of secondhand book and record stalls, and pet ‘shops’ selling chirpy birds (some kept in old-fashioned wooden cages), fluffy mice and tiny baby…
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Museo de Bellas Artes
A mere five minutes from Museo Guggenheim is Bilbao’s Museo de Bellas Artes. The museum houses a compelling collection that includes everything from Gothic sculptures to 20th-century pop art. There are three main subcollections: classical art, with works by Murillo, Zurbarán, El Greco, Goya and van Dyck; contemporary art, featuring works by Gauguin, Francis Bacon and Anthony Caro; and Basque art, with works of the great sculptors Jorge de Oteiza and Eduardo Chillida, and strong paintings by the likes of Ignacio Zuloago and Juan de Echevarria. A useful audio guide costs €1. The museum is wheelchair accessible.
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Open Air Gallery, Museo Guggenheim
One of the joys of the Guggenheim experience is to take a quiet wander around the outside of the building, appreciating the extraordinary imagination behind its design and catching the different colours reflected by the titanium tiles, limestone and glass. Lying between the glass buttresses of the central atrium and Ría de Bilbao is a simple pool of water that emits at intervals a mist 'sculpture' by Fuyiko Nakaya.
Nearby on the riverbank is a sculpture by Louise Bourgeois, a skeletal canopy representing a spider entitled Maman, said to represent a protective embrace.
In the open area to the west of the museum a fountain sculpture fires off jets of water into the air…
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Euskal Museoa
This museum is probably the most complete museum of Basque culture and history in all the Basque regions. The story kicks off back in the days of prehistory and from this murky period the displays bound rapidly through to the modern age. The main problem with the museum is that, unless you speak Spanish (or perhaps you studied Euskara at school?), it’s all a little meaningless as, amazingly, there are no English or French translations.
The museum is housed in a fine old building, at the centre of which is a peaceful cloister that was part of an original 17th-century Jesuit college. In the cloister is the Mikeldi Idol, a powerful pre-Christian, possibly Iron Age,…
reviewed
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Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar
Brace yourself for the saintly and the solemn in this great baroque cavern of Catholicism. The faithful believe that it was here on 2 January 40 that Santiago (St James the Apostle) saw the Virgin Mary descend atop a marble pilar (pillar). A chapel was built around the remaining pilar, followed by a series of ever-more-grandiose churches, culminating in the enormous basilica that you see today. Originally designed in 1681 by Felipe Sánchez y Herrera, it was greatly modified in the 18th century by the heavier hand of Ventura Rodríguez. The exterior is another story altogether, its splendid main dome lording over a flurry of 10 mini-domes, each encased in chunky blue,…
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Aljafería
La Aljafería is Spain's finest Islamic-era edifice outside Andalucía. It's not in the league of Granada's Alhambra or Córdoba's Mezquita, but it's a glorious monument nonetheless.
The Aljafería was built as a pleasure palace for Zaragoza's Islamic rulers, chiefly in the 11th century. After the city passed into Christian hands in 1118, Zaragoza's Christian rulers made alterations. In the 1490s the Reyes Católicos (Catholic Monarchs), Fernando and Isabel, tacked on their own palace, whereafter the Aljafería fell into decay. Twentieth-century restorations brought the building back to life, and in 1987 Aragón's regional parliament, the Cortes de Aragón, was established…
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La Seo
Dominating the eastern end of Plaza del Pilar is the Catedral de San Salvador, more popularly known as La Seo. Built between the 12th and 17th centuries, it displays a fabulous spread of architectural styles from Romanesque to baroque – it's Zaragoza's finest example of Christian architecture. It stands on the site of Islamic Zaragoza's main mosque (which in turn stood upon the temple of the Roman forum). The northwest facade is a Mudéjar masterpiece, deploying classic dark brickwork and colourful ceramic decoration in eye-pleasing geometric patterns. All the chapels are framed by beautiful stonework and ring the changes from the eerie solemnity of the Capilla de San…
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Catedral
Pamplona’s main cathedral stands on a rise just inside the city ramparts amid a dark thicket of narrow streets. The cathedral, which was undergoing a radical makeover at the time of research but was still open to the public, is a late-medieval Gothic gem spoiled only by its rather dull neoclassical facade, an 18th-century appendage. The vast interior reveals some fine artefacts, including a silver-plated Virgin and the splendid 15th-century tomb of Carlos III of Navarra and his wife Doña Leonor. The real joy is the Gothic cloister, where there is marvellous delicacy in the stonework. The Museo Diocesano occupies the former refectory and kitchen, and houses an…
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Cathedral
Pamplona's main cathedral stands on a rise just inside the city ramparts amid a dark thicket of narrow streets. The cathedral is a late-medieval Gothic gem spoiled only by its rather dull neoclassical facade, an 18th-century appendage. The vast interior reveals some fine artefacts, including a silver-plated Virgin and the splendid 15th-century tomb of Carlos III of Navarra and his wife Doña Leonor. The real joy is the Gothic cloister, where there is marvellous delicacy in the stonework. The Museo Diocesano occupies the former refectory and kitchen, and houses an assortment of religious art, including some fine Gothic woodcarvings.
reviewed
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Castillo de Loarre
The evocative Castillo de Loarre broods above the southern plains across which Islamic raiders once rode. Raised in the 11th century by Sancho III of Navarra and Sancho Ramírez of Aragón, its resemblance to a crusader castle has considerable resonance with those times. There's a labyrinth of dungeons, tunnels and towers and two towers offering magnificent views.
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Monasterio de Veruela
Backed by the often snowcapped Sierra del Moncayo, the fortified, Cistercian Monasterio de Veruela, founded in the 12th century, looks more like a Castilian castle than a monastery. The rather stern Gothic church is flanked by a charming cloister, which has a lower Gothic level surmounted by a Renaissance upper gallery. There’s a good wine museum within the complex. The monastery is 13km southeast of Tarazona and 1km from Vera de Moncayo. Two of Therpasa’s daily Zaragoza–Tarazona buses stop in Vera itself (one on Sunday); the others stop at the Vera turn-off on the N122, 4km from the monastery.
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Museo del Foro de Caesaraugusta
The trapezoid building on Plaza de la Seo is the entrance to an excellent reconstruction of part of Roman Caesaraugusta's forum, now well below ground level. The remains of porticoes, shops, a great cloaca (sewer) system, and a limited collection of artefacts from the 1st century AD are on display. An interesting audiovisual show, presented on the hour in Spanish, breathes life into it all, and audio guides in English (€2) are available.
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Museo del Teatro de Caesaraugusta
Discovered during the excavation of a building site in 1972, the ruins of Zaragoza's Teatro Romano (Roman theatre) are the focus of this interesting museum. The theatre once seated 6000 spectators, and great efforts have been made to help visitors reconstruct the edifice's former splendour, including evening projections of a virtual performance on the stage; get there early to ensure a place. The exhibit culminates in a boardwalk tour through the theatre itself. The theatre is visible from the surrounding streets.
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Aquarium
In the city’s excellent aquarium you’ll fear for your life as huge sharks bear down on you and be tripped out by fancy fluoro jellyfish. The highlights of a visit are the cinema-screen-sized deep ocean and coral reef exhibits and the long tunnel, around which swim monsters of the deep. The aquarium has undergone a recent makeover and expansion, which has seen the opening of a maritime-museum section as well as a few more tanks full of fish. Allow at least an hour and a half for a visit.
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Euskal Museoa
This museum is probably the most complete museum of Basque culture and history in all of Spain. The story kicks off back in the days of prehistory and from this murky period the displays bound rapidly through to the modern age.
The main problem with the museum is that, unless you speak Spanish (or perhaps you studied Euskara at school?), it’s all a little meaningless as there are no English or French translations.
The museum is housed in a fine old building, at the centre of which is a peaceful cloister that was part of an original 17th-century Jesuit college. In the cloister is the Mikeldi Idol, a powerful pre-Christian, possibly Iron Age, symbolic figure.
The museum is…
reviewed
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La Lonja
Now an exhibition hall, this finely proportioned Renaissance-style building, the second building east of the basilica, was constructed in the 16th century as a trading exchange. The coloured medallions on its exterior depict kings of Aragón, but the soaring columns rising to an extraordinary ceiling are the standout features. La Lonja has a full calendar of temporary exhibitions.
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Centro de Historia de Zaragoza
The old convent of San Agustín (only the neoclassical facade remains) is the site of this museum. Each of the eight exhibit rooms focuses on a different aspect of the city's heritage, from trade and transport to popular celebrations. Of particular interest is a series of models depicting Zaragoza's physical transformation through four key phases of its development.
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Funicular de Artxanda
Bilbao is a city hemmed by hills and mountains into a tight valley. For a breathtaking view over the city, the valley it sits in and the wild Basque mountains beyond, take a trip on the funicular railway that has creaked and moaned its way up the steep slope to the summit of Artxanda for nearly a century.
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Museo Marítimo Ría de Bilbao
This space-age maritime museum, appropriately sited down on the waterfront, uses bright and well-thought-out displays to bring the watery depths of Bilbao and Basque maritime history to life. There’s an outdoor section where children (and nautically inclined grown-ups) can clamber about a range of boats pretending to be pirates and sailors.
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Museo de San Telmo
Housed in a former 16th-century monastery with an attractive cloister, this museum features paintings ranging from the Renaissance and the baroque through to the 19th century, with a heavy emphasis on Basque painters. A highlight is the chapel, whose walls are decorated with frescoes by José María Sert chronicling Basque artisanship.
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Casa Natal de Goya
Some 23km east of Cariñena along the A220 lies the small village of Fuendetodos, where Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (Goya) began his days in 1746. The Casa Natal de Goya stayed in his family until the early 20th century, when renowned artist Ignacio Zuloaga bought it.
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Playa de la Concha
Easily among the best city beaches in Europe.
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Monte Igueldo
The views from the summit of Monte Igueldo, just west of town, will make you feel like a circling hawk staring over the vast panorama of the Bahía de la Concha and the surrounding coastline and mountains. The best way to get there is via the old-world funicular railway to the Parque de Atracciones, a slightly tacky mini theme park at the top of the hill. Individual rides (which include roller coasters, boat rides, carousels and pony rides) cost between €1.80 and €2.50 extra. Trains on the funicular railway depart every 15 minutes.
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Museo de Zaragoza
Devoted to archaeology and fine arts, the city museum displays artefacts from prehistoric to Islamic times, with some exceptional mosaics from Roman Cesaraugusta. The upper floor contains 15 paintings by Goya and more than two dozen of his etchings. It's 400m south of the Teatro Romano.
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