Bilbao City Hall stands on the Nervion as a confident late-19th-century civic building, more formal and ornate than the industrial city around it once was. Its exterior is easy to appreciate from the river walk, especially as part of the route between the old town and newer Bilbao.
If tours or interior access are available, the ceremonial rooms add the real flourish, with the kind of decorative ambition Bilbao wanted for itself before the Guggenheim changed the city's global image. Even from outside, it is a useful stop for reading the riverfront's older civic layer.