Extra day in Bilbao

I'm not familiar with options close in to the city, but you may find something interesting through the tourist information offices, such as:

• Beaches by metro: http://www.bilbaoturismo.net/BilbaoTurismo/en/playas-a-un-metro
• Other beach towns (transport unknown): http://www.spain.info/en_US/que-quieres/ciudades-pueblos/otros-destinos/bermeo.html

If you decide that you'd like to take a slow FEVE train along the coast, such as 3 hours to Santander, see schedules at http://www.renfe.com/viajeros/feve/index.html.

Bus makes the trip to Santander in half the time, if you want time to transfer from there to the cute town of Santillana del Mar. Beyond that, if you wanted to go to the replica Altamira Cave you might have to switch to taxi. I did not explore the bus links on their page, since Rick's book says there's "no public transport," and it might be further than you had in mind.

I'd spend the day in Bilbao. I just finished up this tour and we really only had an evening and a day in Bilbao. We arrived in Bilbao fairly late (around 5 or 6). We had an evening orientation walk through the old town. The next day, we had a morning walk through the modern city, followed by a Guggenheim tour which finished up about 1. By the time I ate lunch, returned to the museum to spend another hour on my own, and walked back to the hotel, it was late afternoon. I feel like I only got a taste of Bilbao.

" We will have seen the best of Bilbao"

Actually no. Laura is right - you will have seen the Guggenheim, but there's much more to Bilbao than that. I was there for three nights on my own, and didn't run out of things to do. I see that the tour description suggests walking around the Old Town, which is indeed worthwhile, with its many unusual stores (I'm not a shopper, but I liked looking at these). I didn't get to their other suggestion, the Maritime Museum.

I went to the Museum of Fine Arts (mentioned by Rick in his book) and liked it a lot. I also enjoyed my walking tour of the "new town," the downtown with some very attractive and interesting buildings. But even better were two things Rick doesn't cover in his book.

First, there's the Museum of Reproductions. These are plaster casts of sculptures, but not just any sculptures - some of the world's best and most famous (the Venus de Milo, part of the Pergamon Altar, the Winged Victory), all in one place, and all for €3. Since they're plaster casts, they are exact copies, not approximations. I was totally fascinated and spent about an hour, even though it's small. If you like sculpture, this is a must; as a bonus, when I went there was only one other visitor, so I had it to myself (can't do that at the Louvre!)

Second, there's the Puente Colgante, which is a transporter bridge; in fact, it's the first in the world. If you're at all into infrastructure, this is very interesting. To see a transporter bridge in action, here's the opening scene of The Young Girls of Rochefort; you can, if you wish, ignore the dancing and just watch the bridge: https://youtu.be/1hvjhyL04c4

You see, the top section of the bridge is very high, so ships can pass under it easily, but the bottom section is a bit of roadway that is suspended from the top section and crosses back and forth. This way, they didn't need to build the very long approach sections that would have been needed with a high roadway over the river. This transporter section carries both vehicles and foot passengers, in separate areas.

The bridge connects the towns of Portugalete and Getxo (where's there's a beach); to get there, I took the metro to Portugalete. It's €0.40 to cross on the transporter, or €10 to take an elevator up to the top level, walk across while listening to an audioguide all about the bridge, and then take an elevator back down to take the transporter back across. Needless to say, I paid for the whole shebang. Fun fact: there are prominent signs in Basque, Castilian, and English saying Do Not Smoke and Stay In The Car. So, you can't recreate the movie's opening scene yourself - at least in Bilbao - without getting in trouble.

The small coastal town of Bermeo is more or less an hour away from Bilbao. I think I took a local train, but it appears that there's some bus service, and it may be faster. A meatier destination would be Vitoria-Gasteiz, which has service by ALSA buses and perhaps others. The ALSA website isn't working on my tablet at the moment, so I cannot confirm Rome2Rio's time estimate of 1 hour. V-G has a large medieval district and a couple of art museums. Last year you could take an interesting English-language tour of the cathedral, which was under restoration.

Don't get too excited about the Altamira caves until you check on the current procedures. I gave up on the prospect last year because it seemed I was going to have to show up somewhere other than the caves to try for a ticket. Not having a car made the whole thing sort of unmanageable. It's possible, though, that there would be no issue if you booked in advance. Santander (not a particularly thrilling city, aesthetically speaking, due to a massive fire in the 1940s) can be reached much faster by bus than by the FEVE train, though the latter may be far more scenic. Certainly FEVE is a lovely (if incredibly slow) way to travel between Bilbao and San Sabastian.

But I'm with Harold and Laura: I liked Bilbao a lot and could easily spend the extra time there. It gets bonus points from me for not being awash in foreign tourists except right around the Guggenheim.

Many thanks for your replies. Will plan accordingly.