Pintxo-hopping is, by far, our favourite thing to do in the Basque country.

Pintxos are small bites that you can get at pretty much every bar. Start at one bar, grab a few pintxos, and move on to the next one. Great way to explore.

To get you started: https://www.bascofinefoods.com/travel-reviews/top-10-pintxo-bars-in-bilbao/

Here are some of our favourites:

El Globo tavern

Víctor Montes jatetxea

Iturriza Taberna

It's worth also looking not just at the pintxos on display but also asking about the warm pintxo they have available.

The best view of Bilbao! A nice (not too tough, not too easy) climb to get an amazing view of the city.

(Don't want to climb? Just drive up by car)

For the cultured people, this is the main attraction of Bilbao. But even if you don't like museums (like us), the building alone is worth it, definitely have at least a walk around it!

45 minutes away or so, this is Dragonstone from Game of Thrones, a gorgeous walkway that is very accessible and goes out across the water. You can read more here, you do need to book it a few weeks upfront.

Lovely hike, not too far from Bilbao (you will need to drive) which has a few routes, including a slower, not too steep one. We recommend taking a picnic with and having a picnic at the top.

A cute little seaside town 20 minutes from Bilbao (easy to get to with public transport). There are multiple beaches, nice restaurants and the walk up Paseo Punta Galea offers you a great view over Bilbao

You can't go to the basque country without having some Basque cheesecake! Our favourite place is in San Sebastiaan (the loaf) but luckily there are plenty of places that serve it in Bilbao like Gure Toki or Bascake (which has some variations on the original version)

Whilst cider season is mid-January - April, you can still get bottled cider during the rest of the year. Basque cider is very different, more flat, and not very sweet, but absolutely delicious.

You can get it at various places but there are also cider houses like Galtzagorri Sagardotegia, some of which that are open during the rest of the year too.

Gorgeous beachside town with lots of pinxos (tapas but better), pretty buildings and older buildings, about 1 - 1.5 hours from Bilbao by car.

Tortilla deserves it's own section. Daphne has a slight tortilla addiction, managing about 5-6 slices in 3 days during our most recent visit to Bilbao.

The classic version is with onions and potatoes, it should be sloppy! There are lots of variations with cheese, ham, fish, mushroom and more.

Pretty much every pintxos place will have tortilla, but we recently asked our friends who live near Bilbao for their recommendations and they shared: La tortilla de Aitxu, Mr Marvelous and Nashville.

We went to Mr Marvelous the other day for breakfast and it was great!

This is the fresh market and it also has pintxos bars at the top. These are slightly more touristy (and slightly pricier as a result but still cheap), that being said there is a great selection there and it's a handy one if you have allergies as much pintxo places will not have labels and not all places will speak english