Plaza de la Virgen Blanca

The sloping square at the seam between old town and 19th-century expansion is the heart of Vitoria. A monument in the centre commemorates the 1813 Battle of Vitoria, when Wellington's army drove the French out of Spain (and accidentally found Joseph Bonaparte's looted art collection on the road, half of which is still in the British royal collection).

The square is ringed by bars with terraces, full at every aperitivo hour, and it is the venue for the city's biggest annual festival every August. The cast-iron miradores (glazed bay windows) on the surrounding buildings are characteristic of Vitoria architecture.

things to do sight
A story
Every year on 4 August at the stroke of six in the evening, a man dressed as a 19th-century gentleman descends from the bell tower of San Miguel on a wire across the square — the Bajada del Celedón that opens the city's patron saint festival, a tradition since 1957.