Step past the “Dog Fountain,” and the street suddenly changes tone — this is where Bilbao starts grinning. It’s a strip of bars and pubs where the smell of fried anchovies, fresh coffee, and young wine hangs in the air, and conversations flow with the same ease as txakoli sliding into a glass. You don’t plan to stop here — your legs just decide for you.
Xukela is the heartbeat of this little row. Only a few steps from Fuente del Perro, the bar feels like a pocket of old Bilbao: wooden walls, sun-faded posters, framed photos that have been there forever, and a kind of warm noise that comes only from people who know a place by heart. There’s no shine, no performance — it’s all authenticity.
Locals walk in as if crossing their own threshold: they stand at the counter, order a glass of wine, and reach for a pintxo before it disappears. That’s the unwritten rule of Xukela — pintxos are for eating as long as they’re on the counter. Tourists look confused at first, then switch into the rhythm: here, nothing is served — life is simply happening around you.
This little “dog street” pulses with the same attitude that defines Bilbao itself: loud in the best way, a bit stubborn, and absolutely alive. Here, flavor and laughter are part of history — just as real as the stones beneath your feet.
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.
