City in Spain
15 things to see12 of them free
The capital of the Basque Country, and one of the best low-cost bases in northern Spain for travelers who want Basque food without coastal crowds. The old town is shaped like an almond, the Almendra Medieval, and it is free to walk from edge to edge: arcaded streets, the Painted City Murals route, Plaza de la Virgen Blanca, and the Los Arquillos arcades.
At the top of the old town, the Old Cathedral of Santa Maria is still being restored and is visitable as a working construction site, the cathedral that inspired Ken Follett’s World Without End. A statue of the author stands nearby, free to see. The lower town has its own landmark in the New Cathedral of Mary Immaculate.
The budget logic is the main reason to come. The same pintxo bars and Basque culture that fill San Sebastian run through Vitoria-Gasteiz too, but the city draws a fraction of the visitors, so beds and bar bills stay lower. A ring of free parks, the Green Belt, circles the center and helped Vitoria-Gasteiz earn the European Green Capital title in 2012, the only Spanish city to hold it. The city makes an easy, cheaper-base counterpart to Bilbao, San Sebastian, and Pamplona, and sits within reach of Logrono and Burgos for onward travel.
What to see
12 of these cost nothing at all.
Early 20th-century palace ringed by gardens in the south of Vitoria-Gasteiz, serving as the official residence of the Lehendakari, the president of the Basque Country. The interior is closed to the public, but the building and its grounds are free to view from outside, which is the whole appeal for a budget traveler passing through.
15th-century Gothic townhouse named for the carved Franciscan cord that frames its main doorway, and one of the oldest civil buildings in the old town of Vitoria-Gasteiz. Free to admire from the street, so it costs nothing to add to a walk through the medieval quarter.
National memorial museum in Vitoria-Gasteiz honouring the victims of terrorism in Spain, with a focus on dignity, memory, and reconciliation. Free to enter and housed in a restored early-twentieth-century former Bank of Spain building, it is one of the most serious and rewarding stops in the Basque capital.
14th-century Gothic church at the edge of the old town, housing the niche of the Virgen Blanca, patron of the city, and the launch point of Vitoria's biggest festival. Free to enter.
15th-century timber-framed merchant house on Zapatari kalea, now a traditional restaurant. The street-facing facade is free to admire and ranks among the best-preserved medieval commercial buildings in the Basque Country.
Renaissance palace with an Italianate courtyard, built in the 1530s and 1540s by Fernan Lopez de Escoriaza, a physician who served at the court of Henry VIII of England before returning to his home city. Free to view the facade and exterior; the courtyard opens occasionally during heritage events.
The Fournier Card Museum, or Museo Fournier de Naipes, tells the history of playing cards through one of the largest collections of its kind in the world.
Los Arquillos is a tiered run of neoclassical arcades that links the hilltop medieval old town of Vitoria-Gasteiz to the flatter lower town below it.
Renaissance palace at the top of the medieval old town, now the city's municipal cultural centre, hosting exhibitions and events. The building and most of its shows are free to enter, with the occasional programmed exhibition or event carrying a charge.
Tall commemorative column at the centre of Plaza de la Virgen Blanca, marking the 1813 Battle of Vitoria that helped break Napoleonic rule in Spain. Free to see and the visual focal point of Vitoria's main square.
The New Cathedral of Mary Immaculate, known locally as Catedral de Maria Inmaculada or simply the Catedral Nueva, is the largest religious building in the Basque Country and the second-largest church in Spain after Seville.
Gothic cathedral at the top of the old town in Vitoria-Gasteiz, and the city's single most unusual sight. Rather than a finished church, it is visitable as a working construction site: the "Open for Works" guided tours take visitors through decades of ongoing restoration, scaffolding and hard hats included.
A walking route of large-scale murals painted across old-town building facades in Vitoria-Gasteiz, turning the medieval Almendra Medieval into an open-air gallery.
Renaissance palace in the old town of Vitoria-Gasteiz, built in the 16th century into a stretch of the medieval city wall and now used as a congress and exhibition venue. Free to view the exterior from the square; interior access depends on scheduled events.
The main square of Vitoria-Gasteiz and the open-air heart of the city, centred on the Monumento a la Batalla de Vitoria and overlooked by the Church of San Miguel. Free to enjoy, and the focal point of the city's biggest festival, the Fiestas de la Blanca.
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