Bilbao.

Bilbao sits where the Basque Country's green hills meet the Nervión River, a city built on shipping and steel that reinvented itself around art and design. The Guggenheim Museum anchors a riverside district of contemporary architecture, while Casco Viejo keeps the older city alive in narrow streets lined with tapas bars and traditional shops. The Ribera Market sells the produce and seafood that shape Basque cooking, and pintxos bars across the Old Town turn that cooking into small, shareable plates eaten at the counter. Riverside walkways connect old and new Bilbao, passing bridges and public art on the way toward the green slopes of Artxanda, which look back over the city and the surrounding hills. The Bilbao Fine Arts Museum holds Basque and Spanish painting from several centuries, and the Basque Maritime Museum traces the port's shipbuilding past. Industrial grit and contemporary design sit side by side here, a working city that wears its transformation openly.