Vitoria-GasTeiz: Day Trip

September 7, 2024

Vitora-Gasteiz is the capital of the Basque Autonomous Region in Northern Spain.  This city of 250,000 is situated about 40 miles southeast of Bilbao and boasts a vibrant Old Town, some impressive cathedrals and a ton of greenspaces.   On our first visit we just sratched the surface, spending some time ambling about the old town and visiting some interesting museums, but we  hope to return to explore some of the green spaces that surround the city. 

Our exploration of the city got off to a delayed start when we got trapped in a parking garage for about 30 minutes. We detailed this exciting adventure in our Travel Stories - click here to read about our real life escape room!

Our walking tour took us by the Cathedral de Maria Immaculada, the Plaza de la Virgen Blanca and the Almendra, the nickname for the Old Town because of its almond shape.

We stopped for lunch at a restaurant called El Gautxo and enjoyed their menu de dia including a glass of wine.

Mural Itinery of Vitoria-Gasteiz (IMVG), is an organization set up to create murals and graffiti art throughout the city.  There are a total of 19 and there is a map that takes you on a walking tour to see them all.  We didn't take the walking tour, but we did snap some pics whenever we ran into them.  

Since we've been traveling we have learned a ton of card games to help keep us occupied during our down time especially on our "No Tech Tuesdays" - one day each week where we (adults and kids) are not permitted to use any electronics, screens, etc.  So it was a lovely surprise to read about a museum in Vitoria-Gasteiz devoted entirely to playing cards and boasting vintage decks from 5 contienents as well as housing equipment that was used in the playing card printing and cutting process.

The museum was the brainchild of Felix Alfaro Fournier, the grandson of the founder of Naipes Heraclio Fournier and opened as a private collection in 1916. 

As an assignment we challenged the kids to design and produce their own deck of playing cards usuing whatever theme they would like.  Ryan chose a music note theme, Austen chose animals and Finley chose weapons of war.  We had no idea about her belicose tendencies.  We'll have to keep an eye on her. :)  Daddy also produced a deck using a sports theme. 

Conveniently they also have a souvenir shop nearby that sells replica vintage Fournier card decks so we picked one up to add to our collection along side our Five Tickets to Roam deck we made on Shutterfly. 

After the museum - which is a two-fer with an archeological museum which Dan did not venture into, but the rest of the Roamers did - we ambled back to our parking spot, enjoying some fun sculptures along the way.

We were treated to some nice views of our home valley (near Orduna) on our way home.