The Maritime Museum of Bilbao

Come to Bilbao and visit its numerous museums and stores!

Do you like the sea and everything that is related to the city of Bilbao? Are you enthusiastic about boats? In this case, come quickly to visit the Maritime Museum, there is an exhibition extremely interesting!

With indoors and outdoors exhibitions, this museum offer the opportunity to learn about the evolution of the port of Bilbao, to see many navigation objects, and above all, to visit the interior of many boats docked at the pier of the museum.

The museum is located at an area of piers and an old dockyard, and it occupies a space of about 27000 m2. It provides two floors of indoors exhibition and an outdoor exhibition as well, and the facility is in excellent conditions. Thereby, you can see the permanent exhibition that presents the boats that marked the history of Bilbao, the ones that were built right in that very same place, and photographs of shipwrecks and of the port itself.

In the beginning of the visit, there is an interesting video about the port and also about Bilbao. So, you can see the evolution of the port, and the city, since its founding in 1300 up to the present time. You will be able to see the transformations that the port has gone trough in order to adapt throughout the years to the economic evolution of the city along with the exportation of wool, iron, minerals and carbon to England. These changes took place in order to facilitate the transportation of the goods over the stream. You will also find out about the evolution of the naval constructions: from the boats made of wood, to the ones made of steel, up to now with the entire new technological advances. With the improvement of the resources, faster and more stable boats were created, which it permitted to transport more hazardous goods to further distances thanks to the evolution of the cartography.

The exhibition of the boat lamps comes from the rests of a boat from the XV century found in the stream of Guernica. It has been exhibited during two years now in the Maritime Museum of Bilbao.

Another impressing display is the stained glass wall called “El lado humano de la Ría” (The human side of the stream). It’s the size of an entire wall and very high and it is a tribute to all of those who have some kind of relation with the river; the fisherman, the dock workers…

In the second part of the exhibition, on open air, you will have the opportunity to visit the boats and find out how the interior is made. It is an enriching adventure for all of those who are curious and passionate about boats and the sea. You will be able to visit the boats docked in the old dockyard, docks which are dated from the beginning of the XX century.

Once you come to Bilbao, you will have the opportunity to visit numerous places and museums, including the Maritime Museum by the river in Bilbao! Come quickly to our school, Instituto Hemingway, to participate in one of our numerous programs, but above all, to get to know a passionate and enriching city.