The Seven Streets of Bilbao's Casco Viejo: a self-guided walk
By Alleytale
The seven original streets of the Casco Viejo
Bilbao was chartered in 1300 and its old town grew into seven parallel streets, several of them laid out in the 15th century. Their names tell you where they lie or what was sold there, and the walk crosses them from Barrenkale, the "lower street", to Somera, the "upper street", which is the first of the seven when you count from the church of San Antón.
The stops
This arcaded neoclassical square was designed in 1821 and inaugurated in 1851. Its name means New Square, and it comes from the Old Square that stood where the Ribera Market was later built, which is where this walk ends. Arched passages called cuevas lead in, and the square is now the site of Euskaltzaindia, the Royal Academy of the Basque Language.
Photo: Zarateman — CC0 This church began as a hermitage in the fishermen's quarter outside the town, which is why it is dedicated to Saint Nicholas of Bari. Floods ruined the first church, founded in 1490, and the present Baroque one opened in 1756, designed by Ignacio Ibero. Its façade faces the Arriaga Theatre, and the altarpieces inside were commissioned in 1754 from the court sculptor Juan Pascual de Mena.
Photo: Javi Guerra Hernando — CC BY-SA 4.0 Joaquín Rucoba, who also built the city hall, designed this neo-baroque opera house, which opened on 31 May 1890, and its façades were inspired by the Paris Opera. A fire destroyed it in 1914 and a flood damaged it in 1983, and it reopened in 1986. It is named for Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, the composer nicknamed the "Spanish Mozart", whose birthplace is on Calle Somera, later on this walk.
Photo: Javi Guerra Hernando — CC BY-SA 4.0 Severino de Achúcarro designed this eclectic building, put up between 1888 and 1890 as the home of El Sitio, a recreational and cultural society founded in honour of the people who defended Bilbao during the Carlist wars. It has been a library since 1956. The floods of 1983 damaged it badly and it stayed closed for five years, and a plaque on the façade says its interior is decorated with frescoes by Anselmo Guinea and José Echenagusia.
Photo: MaiGor JoaEto — CC BY-SA 4.0 The Basque Museum opened in 1921 on the ground floor of the baroque cloister of the old Colegio de San Andrés, which belonged to the Jesuits until they were expelled from Spain in 1767. Its collections cover the archaeology of Biscay and the ethnohistory of the Basque Country, and it has been a National Historic-Artistic Monument since 1962. The church next door belonged to the same Jesuit college, and it is the next stop.
Photo: Xabier — CC0 Work on this Baroque church began in 1622, to plans by the Jesuit Father Ramírez, for the Jesuits' Colegio de San Andrés. After the Jesuits were expelled in 1767, the historic parish of Santos Juanes moved in from the Ibeni quarter in 1769. The composer Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga was baptised in that parish on the day he was born, in 1806.
Photo: Acediscovery — CC BY 4.0 This fountain began as a drinking trough for animals brought to the market. A plaque says it was once known as los chorros de San Miguel, the spouts of San Miguel, and that its neoclassical design of 1800 imitates a little temple with a basin shaped like a sarcophagus. Nobody knows for sure why it is called the Dog Fountain, though one story says a neighbour carved a lion on a façade so badly that people said it looked like a dog.
Photo: MaiGor JoaEto — CC BY-SA 4.0 Barrenkale means "lower street", named for its place below Somera and Artekale when it was built in 1445. The Barrondo family, one of Bilbao's powerful clans, had a tower house here where King Pedro of Castile, called the Cruel, stayed when he came to Bilbao. Next to it runs Barrenkale Barrena, the "lower lower street" and the seventh and last of the seven.
Photo: Daniel Lobo — CC BY 2.0 Carnicería Vieja means Old Butchery, and a Basque Country tourism guide says the street is named for being the site of the city's first slaughter. It is the fifth of the seven streets when you count from San Antón, and it ends in the square beside the cathedral.
Photo: Zarateman — CC0 Belostikale was once spelled Belosticalle and, before that, Belaostecalle, and people popularly called it the Pesquería street, the "fishery" street. It is the fourth of the seven, founded in the 15th century, and it runs from opposite the Ribera Market up to the cathedral. At number 1 stands the Arana Palace.
Photo: Zarateman — CC BY-SA 4.0 This Gothic church was built in the 14th and 15th centuries as Bilbao's main parish church and is one of the city's oldest buildings. It is dedicated to Saint James because pilgrims on the Northern Way of the Camino de Santiago passed through the city, and UNESCO listed it with other Camino buildings in 2015. The tower with its spire and the west portico were finished in 1887 by Severino de Achúcarro, who also designed the library you passed, and a curious custom added stone carvings of local merchants along the buttresses.
Photo: Javi Guerra Hernando — CC BY-SA 4.0 Tendería, "shopkeepers' street", was full of silk and cloth merchants, and the Camino de Santiago still runs through it. A tower house of Martín Pérez de Arbolancha stood here around 1375, and in 1483 Queen Isabella the Catholic swore to uphold the fueros, the traditional laws of Biscay, at the Tendería gate, in traditional dress. Look for the tiny shops built against the cathedral's outer walls.
Photo: Sergiportero — CC BY-SA 3.0 es Somera means "upper" and is counted as the first of the seven streets. The wall that enclosed the first Bilbao, six metres high and two thick, was built into the backs of its houses. The composer Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, the "Spanish Mozart" the theatre is named for, was born in 1806 in the family house at what is now number 12.
Photo: Claudiapenanunez — CC BY-SA 4.0 San Antón and the bridge beside it appear together on Bilbao's coat of arms. The Gothic church was built at the end of the 15th century on a plot where a warehouse had stood for 300 years, and the bridge is the city's oldest, first opened before 1318 and for centuries the only crossing of the river. The Seven Streets are usually counted from this church, and floods of the Nervión damaged it again and again, most recently in 1983.
Photo: Zarateman — CC0 Bilbao's market has met here since the 14th century, on the old square that gave Plaza Nueva its name. The present building opened on 22 August 1929, designed by Pedro de Ispizua with open halls free of interior columns and an Art Deco look. It covers 10,000 square metres, which makes it one of the biggest covered markets in Europe, and in 1990 it entered the Guinness Book of Records as the most complete municipal food market.
Photo: Javi Guerra Hernando — CC BY-SA 4.0
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