Bilbao

Bilbao is the comeback story everybody uses as a case study, and it is far more interesting than the shorthand suggests. Thirty years ago this was a heavy-industry river city with a dying port and a reputation to match. Then Frank Gehry built a titanium museum on a derelict shipyard site and the whole place turned itself around. What nobody tells you is how good the rest of it is – the Casco Viejo, the covered market, the food, the walk along the water.

It is a working city of about three hundred and fifty thousand rather than a resort, and I like it enormously for that. People live here. The bars are full of locals rather than visitors. And it makes a very good two days, either side of San Sebastián or on its own.