20 places of interest in Vitoria-Gasteiz (assuming it isn't festival week)
1) Catedral de Santa Maria
What marks out Santa Maria Cathedral as special is that it very nearly fell down, hence even ten years ago you could only visit in a hard hat. It was built in the 13th century at the highest point hereabouts and along one edge doubled up as part of the city's defensive wall. Unfortunately the design failed to take into account the slope, the underlying geology and the importance of supports and by the 16th century problems with subsidence were already evident. In the 1960s architects made things worse by removing several internal arches and in 1994 the preponderance of cracks saw the cathedral closed to the public. Structural rehabilitation began in 1999 on a painstakingly broad scale, and only in the last few years has all the scaffolding come down permitting normal worship and helmet-free tours to resume. A few tours are delivered in English and if you're lucky you'll get Xuban running yours. [11€, 90 mins]
The tour starts in the crypt, a vast excavated undercroft that was once occupied by a medieval cemetery. Here thick concrete pillars were added early in the project to provide resistant capacity sufficient to keep the walls up, which is suitably reassuring as you walk through. None of this subterranean support is visible in the cathedral proper which now looks like any other magnificent religious space, although the lofty vaults still wiggle in an unstraight manner where compression has done its worst. Oddly for a cathedral tour the ground floor is the least visited space because next it's off up the back stairs to climb narrow passages to the triforium. This is the pillared gallery along the side of the nave, many metres up, and although the high walk wasn't quite enough to trigger my vertigo it did require considerable faith in the consolidation project.
Some reassuringly chunky stairs have been built up the belltower where the tour concludes with 360° views across the city. Closest are the red roofs of the old town, with Vitoria's three other significant towers proudly on view. Beyond that are increasingly modern flats, the city having built up in concentric rings over the last century, a planning masterstroke which means there's always room on the periphery for further accommodation. What you won't find up the belltower are any bells, this because the last thing a potentially unstable building needs is heavy weights at its highest point, hence they're all lined up outsideat ground level. More weirdly the bronze statue alongside is of Welsh author Ken Follett dressed in a suit and sensible shoes while stroking his chin. The follow-up to his most successful historical novel The Pillars of Earth was heavily inspired by the restoration project at Santa Maria, and the praise he's heaped on the cathedral has seen the city take him to their hearts.
Perversely the tour ends at the cathedral entrance, an enclosed portico with much intricate decorative stonework. Much was originally painted until foolish conservators in the 1960s scraped it off and in doing so damaged the statues underneath. Only Mary herself survives in her medieval finery, the 2020s plan being to project the original colours onto the walls instead. We were treated to an initial lightshow before being despatched after a fascinating ninety minutes, because sometimes the best tours of a cathedral barely touch on anything religious at all.
2) Fournier Museum of Playing Cards
Here's a splendidly niche attraction, a card-based offering based in a Renaissance palace in the old town. It's here because one of the world's largest playing card companies was founded here in 1870 by Heraclio Fournier González, with the word VITORIA displayed prominently on the design for the Ace of Spades. His son Félix started the collection which now comprises 20,000 decks from around the world, a selection of which appear across three floors around a central arched courtyard. Downstairs is an original press with a sheet of Latin-style cards, the four suits being cups, coins, swords and batons. Upstairs the cases contain historic and thematic examples, also displays where identical denominations are laid out for comparison.
The old designs could be either simple or complex but with no digits in the corner, thus the illustration had to convey all the meaning (count the swords!). Various royal figures appear in the European cards, also some fairly intricate aces, also Jack-Cavalier-King was sometimes numbered 10-11-12. From India comes a Kamasutra set you wouldn't use with minors, and from Vitoria some gorgeous childish sets you definitely would. Also on display are factual cards which were the Enlightenment version of Top Trumps, and of course tarot cards which are a whole different illustrative genre altogether. Throw in a temporary exhibition on the 1860 eclipse, this because one of the De La Rue playing card dynasty came to see it, and you have a free museum that's a really good deal.
3) Arabako Arkeologia Museoa
The city's archaeological museum fills a modern building alongside the playing card museum to form a cultural duo known as BIBAT. Unfortunately both close mid-afternoon (as many Spanish institutions do) and by the time we'd finished the playing cards they were already sounding the 1.50pm chimes. I thus missed many floors of old things from Álava, a lunch of pintxos now the only viable option.
4) Artium
This subterranean gallery showcases the official Collection of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country. It's a millennial project thus all postmodern up top, with a lengthy labyrinth of white-walled chambers concealed underground. I liked the variety of the works on display from abstracts to architectural blueprints and lumpy sculptures to comicbook illustrations. One half covers the permanent collection while the other arm is for temporary exhibitions, the emptiest of which was a huge room of video installations exemplifying "a genealogy of practices influenced by decolonial thought, cybernetics and feminism". Basque artbolx is just insufferable as the British version. Visiting the Artium costs 5€ if you come in the 11am-2pm session but is free if you come 5pm-8pm. We visited in the post-siesta slot and could sense the discontent in the cashier's tone as she issued a free ticket with no optional donation.
5) Museo de Bellas Artes
The Basque Capital also has a museum of fine arts covering classic Basque and Spanish works. I didn't go in because if you visit a city with friends and want to keep them, sometimes you cut your losses.
6) Salburua
On the northeast outskirts of the city is a large reclaimed wetland area called Salburua. Formerly drained for agriculture, the 400 acre site now again has three lakes and a considerable wildlife population. We didn't spot any mink but in the shady borders we saw lizards, from the bird hides we saw deer and on the way to the hides perhaps a dozen storks circling in the sky. Alas drought conditions have shrunk much of the damp area to cracked mud else we might have seen more. On the farthest edge is a visitor centre with a lengthy cantilevered armshooting out over the smallest lake, oddly inaccessible from the cafe, and just beyond is the city's basketball arena which resembles a silver crown. A 20 mile Green Belt walk encircling the city starts and finishes at Salburua.
7) Palacio de Montehermoso 8) Palacio Escoriaza-Esquivel
Napoleon's brother stayed in the first of these before losing the key battle of Vitoria in 1813. It's now a cultural centre with nice gardens. The latter was the home of Henry VIII's doctor Fernando and his sweetheart Victoria, both of whom are depicted above the door presenting each other with a rose.
9) The city walls
A lot of Spanish cities demolished their walls when they expanded. Here short sections of the 11th century defences remain, somechunky and others reconstructed in cedarwood to show how tall they would have been.
10) The old town (Casco Viejo)
A lot of my report yesterday came from the old town, a truly atmospheric almond-shaped nucleus which merits lengthy wandering. Its narrow streets are named after the trades once carried out in each, for example knifemakers, cobblers, blacksmiths and painters. Changes in elevation are dealt with by long steps, a long arched colonnade and in a few places covered escalators, upwards only. Bars and cafes are endemic.
19) Centro Memorial de las Víctimas del Terrorismo
In 2021 the former Bank of Spain building was converted into the Victims of Terrorism Memorial Centre, a place of reflection in a territory where violence and terrorism lingered longer than most.
20) Euskotren
Like many Spanish cities Vitoria-Gasteiz has its own tram network, in this case two overlapping lines connecting the suburbs to the city centre. The first of 23 stops opened in 2008 with the latest extension to Salburua opening in 2023. Some of the earlier platforms are too short for the new 7-car trams. It's 2€ a ride or 0.74€ if you have the special Barik card which obviously everyone does, which is a bargain. Trams run only every 15 minutes and skip several areas, so we found it quicker to walk, but many British cities of a similar size would look on with jealousy at such a transport facility.
