England and Iberia Day 16

Where we visit fast food restaurants in Bilbao

Posted by Brian Hart on August 13, 2026 · 13 mins read
  • Start of day: Bilbao, Spain
  • End of day: At sea

Our return to Bilbao after 19 years. How time flies!

A vertical digital signboard set into a marble and pale timber wall in a ship's lobby, glowing bright blue. White text reads WELCOME TO BILBAO, SPAIN, then below a dividing rule, ALL ABOARD, then GUEST — 4:30 p.m. and CREW — 4:00 p.m. At the bottom is the Celebrity X logo beside CITIZEN, Eco-Drive, PURPOSEFUL POWER and the line Precision Partner for Today's Port-of-Call.

The shuttle from the port to Bilbao took around 20 minutes and dropped us here behind the Guggenheim museum.

A coach drop-off beneath a large modern building on a bright, cloudless morning. A curving limestone-clad upper storey is carried on square columns over a covered roadway, with a deep blue cylindrical volume rising behind it and a tall angled glass curtain wall to the right. A white coach is parked in the shade under the overhang. A man in a dark t-shirt, jeans and a pale cap walks along the block-paved pavement in the foreground, with two more people at the far left, a strip of bright green lawn to the right and a yellow line painted along the kerb.

Here’s the front side: Siena stands smiling on the pale stone terrace in front of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, her long blonde hair loose and sunglasses pushed up on her head. She wears a loose charcoal t-shirt over a pale pink pleated skirt. Behind her the museum's titanium-clad volumes twist upward in overlapping silver and bronze curves, with a canopy of curved metal on slender columns to the right and a glass-walled section beneath. A shallow reflecting pool runs along the base of the building, and in the distance a cluster of mirrored spheres, palm trees and apartment blocks are visible under a clear blue sky.

A selfie of Brian in front of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, his face filling the lower right of the frame. He wears dark wraparound sunglasses and a navy short-sleeved polo shirt with the collar open. Behind him the museum's titanium panels curve in bands of silver and warm bronze, with the curved metal canopy on its slender column at the right and the glass atrium below. A reflecting pool and steel handrail run behind him, with the mirrored sphere sculpture, palm trees and a bridge visible in the hazy distance under a clear blue sky.

If you’d like an expensive meal at the museum, you can visit here. We did not. A freestanding stainless steel and glass sign outside a restaurant, lettered nerua in lower-case with GUGGENHEIM BILBAO beneath it. Below the name are two round badges: a dark red MICHELIN 2026 disc with the star emblem, and a navy 3 SOLES Guía Repsol disc with three orange dots. A lockable display case mounted below holds the printed menu. Behind the sign, the museum's pale limestone wall curves away up a flight of steps, and the green-painted steel underside of a road bridge crosses overhead.

The restaurant's menu behind glass in its stainless steel display case, printed in parallel columns of Basque, Spanish and English. A header block gives the serving hours as 13:00 to 14:30 at midday and 20:00 to 21:30 in the evening, above a paragraph explaining that the kitchen changes its menu three times a year and works with local producers. Individual dishes are listed with prices — tomatoes in aromatic herb sauce, mochi filled with scorpionfish cake, Russian salad with spider crab and red prawns, sea bass, fried suckling lamb, tripe and snout in Biscayan sauce — alongside a tasting menu headed MUINA at 110 €. The MICHELIN 2026 and 3 SOLES Guía Repsol badges are visible at the top of the frame.

We walked along the river… A row of life-size rust-brown sculpted female figures strung out along a riverside promenade, each leaning into a thick white rope that runs from the front figure back through the line, as though hauling a barge upstream. The nearest figure is in a long dress with a cloth wound round her head, her hands gripping the rope. Two women in vest tops and shorts walk past on the left and more pedestrians are further along the paving. A white-painted railing runs beside the green river to the right, with plane trees, a road bridge on slender masts, banners on lampposts and a wooded hillside beyond, all under a clear blue sky.

… then crossed a pedestrian bridge to the other side. Rowan stands on the Zubizuri footbridge over the river in Bilbao, looking toward the camera in white-framed sunglasses and a black t-shirt, with a silver cross pendant on a black cord. His curly reddish-brown hair catches the sun. Behind him the bridge's white steel arch sweeps overhead and its cable stays fan down to the deck on both sides. The walking surface runs away in dark asphalt with a pale turquoise strip of the original glass decking along the left edge. Several other pedestrians walk ahead, including a man with a grey backpack in pink patterned shorts, with green trees and apartment buildings on the far bank.

We were seeking out El Salón de Mi Casa, a cat café in Bilbao. They said reservations were recommended but not required. We showed up, rang the bell, and nobody came. We peeked in windows but we saw neither people nor cats.

Instead we ended up going to McDonalds for one child, and then Taco Bell for the other. The Taco Bell happened to have the fastest WiFi I’ve ever encountered in any fast food restaurant anywhere, allowing me to do some backups and reduce my anxiety somewhat.

A McDonald's paper order ticket held up in the foreground, printed with the order number 2232 in large white figures on a black band. Smaller Spanish text below invites the customer to rate their visit, above a QR code. Behind it the restaurant counter area is out of focus: a black sign reading RECOGIDA for order collection, an order-status screen on the wall, a row of recessed ceiling spotlights, two deep red pendant lamps, illuminated menu boards and a promotional panel in blue and red.

A cardboard carton on a black tray holding two crunchy tacos filled with shredded lettuce and grated yellow cheese, alongside a pile of orange seasoned fries and a folded paper napkin. The carton is printed with a row of numbers and small animal silhouettes. Behind the tray the restaurant interior recedes: wooden picnic-style tables with brightly painted legs in teal and purple, pendant bulbs hung on lengths of rope, a grid-patterned partition, framed black and white photographs, and a self-serve drinks machine lit with purple neon where a teenager in a black t-shirt and blue shorts is filling a cup.

We made our way back to the museum to pick up the shuttle. Sherri, Rowan and Siena walk away from the camera down a flight of shallow steps with metal handrails, cut into a grassy slope. Sherri is at the left in a blue and white floral dress, Rowan in the centre in a black t-shirt and blue shorts, and Siena at the right in a black top and pale pink skirt. Below them the road runs past the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, its titanium curves rising above pale limestone blocks with a banner hanging on the facade. A deep blue office building stands to the right, with young trees, parked cars and green wooded hills behind, under a cloudless blue sky.

Back onboard and look who we see: the Explora III ship again, which we were docked near yesterday in La Coruña. This ship was only 13 days old at this point, and I’d been researching Explora Journeys prior to our trip, so it feels like I’m meant to sail on her at some point. :)

Two cruise ships lie alongside a concrete quay, seen from high on a third ship. In the foreground the dark blue hull and white superstructure of EXPLORA III fills the frame, her name lettered on the bow above a gold band, with mooring lines running down to bollards on the pier and lifeboats slung along her side. Beyond her bow is another ship of the same line, her funnel lettered Explora in gold on black and white stripes. At the left edge a third vessel shows a white hull with a red and orange swoosh. Behind the ships, a town of red-roofed apartment blocks and villas climbs a green hillside, with hazy blue mountains beyond and small yachts moored on the water.

Later, leaving Bilbao, we passed this breakwater lighthouse. My memory of last time we passed it was that there were lots of people there to wave us off.

The Faro del Rompeolas, a white stone lighthouse at the end of the long Getxo breakwater, seen from a departing ship. The round tower has a ring of small square windows, a railed gallery with a stone balustrade, and a glazed lantern room capped by a green-bronze dome and a weathervane. It stands on a massive semicircular stone bastion whose lower courses are stained green at the waterline. Graffiti in coloured spray paint covers the base of the tower and the small flat-roofed building beside it. A handful of people stand on the bastion and along the mole, which runs away to the right behind a white railing. Two small motorboats and a rowing skiff are on the blue water, and behind them a crowded sandy beach curves along the shore below red-roofed villas and a wooded headland.

I checked my old photos and, sure enough, we had a huge send-off in 2007. I’m guessing the novelty of large ships in Bilbao has worn off now.

A two-panel side-by-side comparison of the Faro del Rompeolas, the lighthouse at the end of the Getxo breakwater, nineteen years apart, each panel headed by a black bar with the year in white. The left panel, labelled 2007, shows the white lighthouse and its semicircular stone bastion crowded shoulder to shoulder with people along the parapet and out along the mole, the stonework clean and unmarked, with a hillside town of white and red-roofed buildings behind under a pale sky. The right panel, labelled 2026, shows the same tower and bastion from a similar angle in bright summer light, now with coloured graffiti sprayed across the base of the tower and the small building beside it, only a scattering of people on the bastion, and the mole running away to the right past a white railing.

We could’ve done more in Bilbao. I think we’re at the point in the cruise where we’re starting to get travel burnout and just weren’t feeling it. I’d like to do a proper visit sometime, including the Guggenheim.

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