Walking through the old streets of Bilbao, your eyes keep drifting upward to the balconies. One has geraniums and a small lemon tree. Another carries a yellow banner calling for support for refugees. And then there’s the white flag with the black silhouette of the Basque Country and the words “Euskal presoak eta iheslariak etxera” — “Basque prisoners and exiles, home.” It’s just cloth, but it carries the weight of decades: freedom, guilt, loss, memory — all tangled together.
These flags appear across the Basque north, from San Sebastián to Bilbao. For some they are a quiet plea for justice, a call to bring home those serving sentences for ties to the former militant group ETA. For others they are painful reminders — of fear, grief, and the years when violence touched nearly every family. In these flags the Basque story becomes visible again: a place where politics and everyday life have always overlapped.
Just below those balconies stands Larralde, a small café that has been open since 1910. Its door creaks, and the display case holds Carolina pastries and pastel de arroz. The smell of coffee, cream, and chocolate fills the doorway. If you didn’t know the history, you might think Bilbao is all sweetness and small pleasures.
But look up again and the façade tells another story. A flag hangs only a few meters above the cakes — a reminder that this city was shaped not only by sugar and flour, but also by struggle, ideas, and loss.
ETA — Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, “Basque Homeland and Freedom” — was born here, among young students determined to protect their language and identity under Franco’s regime. What began as a cultural movement turned into an underground force that carried out hundreds of attacks over decades. Some became national wounds: the 1974 bombing of a Madrid café that killed 13 people; the 1987 attack on Barcelona’s Hipercor supermarket, which killed 21, including children. And perhaps the most shocking — the 1973 assassination of Prime Minister Carrero Blanco, an explosion that launched his car into the air and marked the beginning of the end of the dictatorship.
Over time, Basque society grew weary of bloodshed. In 1997, after the kidnapping and murder of the young councillor Miguel Ángel Blanco, crowds across Spain filled the streets shouting “Basta Ya!” — “Enough!” From that moment, ETA’s support faded. In 2011 it announced a permanent end to violence; in 2018, its dissolution.
Today in Bilbao, history hangs right on the walls. Between houseplants and laundry, flags carry memories. Below them, old shop signs like Larralde keep everyday life moving forward, just as they did a century ago. And that is Bilbao in a single scene: pain and pride, bitterness and coffee, all living side by side — not canceling each other out, but reminding us that freedom begins with the right to remember.
This walk is not just a stroll through the old streets of Bilbao — it’s a walk through the city’s memory. Everything here lies close together: the Gothic gates of Santiago Cathedral, the soft murmur of the “Dog Fountain,” the old plaques still marked by the great flood of 1983, and Bar Xukela, where the spirit of the city lives in a glass of wine and laughter at the counter.
We follow Calle del Perro and Calle de la Torre — streets whose names hold legends and the echoes of ancient family towers. At every turn, a story appears: about the Basques, whose defensive towers once stood like the stone houses of Svaneti; about Diego María Gardoki, the first Basque to serve as Spain’s ambassador to the United States; about Pedro Arrupe, the Basque priest who renewed the Jesuit order in the twentieth century.
Our path leads to the river where ships once lined the shore, and finally to El Arenal — the park where Bilbao learned to breathe, to love, and to listen to the quiet rhythm of its own heart.
This walk is like a simple, honest conversation with the city — no guide, no performance, just a friend who has a story waiting behind every corner.
