Car Hire in Bilbao - Getting to Bilbao

Bilbao is located in the northern Basque region of Spain, near the Bay of Biscay. Bilbao International Airport is 8kms north of the city, near the town of Erandio. It services regular domestic and European arrivals throughout the day from cities including: Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga, Tenerife, Brussels, Frankfurt, Lisbon and London. To get into town from the airport you can take red bus number A3247 to the heart of the city for €1.

A good system of toll motorways links Bilbao with central Spain, as well as with other towns along the northern coast. The A8 highway links the cities of Spain's northern Atlantic seacoast to the western edge of France and is connected by a superhighway from both Barcelona and Madrid. From Madrid, head north on the E5, A1 and A68 to Bilbao.

The RENFE station, the Estacion de Abando, is on Plaza Circular 2, just off the Plaza de Espana. This large railway station also has good links with other important Spanish cities such as Madrid and Barcelona. It is also possible to travel from here north through France to Paris and on to London. Two trains per day run to and from Madrid; the journey takes six hours on the afternoon train and seven hours on the night train.

Alternatively, two trains per day run from Barcelona (11 hours) and one train per day runs from Galicia (12 hours). There are also two night trains per week from the Mediterranean coast: one from Alicante and Valencia, which runs daily during the summer months; and the other from Malaga, which runs three times a week in the summer.

At the Estacion de Buses de Garillano, the PESA operates more than a dozen buses per day from San Sebastian (1 hour, 15 minutes). Continental, Calle Gurtubay, has nine buses per day from Madrid (five hours) and four buses per day from Barcelona (seven hours). Bus services also operate out of Bilbao for many long-distance journeys to places like Portugal, England, Germany and Holland.

One of the most memorable ways to arrive in Bilbao is by boat, and this is possible from Portsmouth in England, as well as from other ports along the northern coast of Spain.