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ERRIBERAKO MERKATUA · CASCO VIEJO · RIGHT BANK

The Ribera Market

Bilbao's covered food market, a long Art Deco building on the riverbank beside the church of San Antón, standing on the site where the town has held its market since the fourteenth century.

The Mercado de la Ribera, its red and white front and stairs above the river

Photo: Alberto-g-rovi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

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The Ribera Market

What you are looking at

Casco Viejo · right bank

  1. 1
    The riverside frontA long, pale front with glazed bays along the quay, best seen from the opposite bank.
  2. 2
    The stained glassLarge colored windows over the halls, kept from Pedro de Ispizua's building of 1929.
  3. 3
    The fish stallsCounters of fresh fish, shellfish and salt cod, the core of any Basque market.
The great stained-glass window of the Ribera market
The great stained-glass window of the Ribera marketTeresa MacKinnon from Leamington Spa, United Kingdom, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
  1. 4
    The farm stallsA corner set aside for produce sold directly by small Basque farms, the caseríos.
  2. 5
    The old towpathThe riverside walk outside, recovered during the reform finished in 2010.
  3. 6
    San Antón beside itThe Gothic church and the old bridge at the market's upstream end.

Reading the place

The sight in full

Why it matters

The Mercado de la Ribera, Erriberako Merkatua in Basque, is a covered food market on Ribera Street, on the right bank of the Ría at the edge of the Casco Viejo. With about 10,000 square meters of selling space it is one of the largest covered markets in Europe, and in 1990 the Guinness Book of Records named it the most complete municipal food market and the biggest by number of traders and stalls.

The Ribera market on its quay, the San Antón church tower beyond, on a gray day
The Ribera market on its quay, the San Antón church tower beyond, on a gray dayAinars Brūvelis, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

It is also a place with a long memory. The town's market stood here, on the old main square beside the church of San Antón, from the fourteenth century, when this spot was the busiest point of the young town. To walk through it is to see what Bilbao eats, from salt cod to farm cheese, in the building that still feeds the old quarter.

From open square to Art Deco hall

For centuries the market was an open square. Stalls began to be covered around 1840, and by 1870 all of them stood under a roof. A larger hall of cast and wrought iron and glass followed, in the fashion of the time, but it trapped so much heat that a sprinkler system was fitted to the roof to cool it. By 1850 the town already had an inspection service for fish, milk and meat.

The river at the old town, the painted houses of the Muelle de Marzana opposite
The river at the old town, the painted houses of the Muelle de Marzana oppositepere prlpz, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

In 1928 the city decided to build a bigger market, and on 22 August 1929, in the middle of the summer festivities, a new reinforced concrete building by the architect Pedro de Ispizua was opened. It was designed for function: open halls without interior columns, good ventilation to keep smells down, translucent floors that let daylight fall from one level to the next, and large stained-glass windows. Together with the decoration of its fronts, it is usually described as an eclectic Art Deco building.

Floods, rebuilding and a reform

In 1971 a new wholesale market opened outside the center, and the Ribera stopped supplying the region's traders and became the neighborhood market of the Casco Viejo and Bilbao La Vieja. In August 1983 the flood that hit the whole city badly damaged the building, and its repair became a chance to modernize it.

The church of San Antón and its bridge, the oldest crossing of the Ría
The church of San Antón and its bridge, the oldest crossing of the RíaJavier Mediavilla Ezquibela, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5

A structural survey in 2008 found serious damage in the concrete, traced to the beach sand used to make it, whose salt had rusted the steel inside. A large part of the building was rebuilt from 2009 without the market closing for a single day. The first phase, designed by the architect Emilio Puertas, opened on 9 December 2010; it brought in much more natural light through broad glazing and recovered the old towpath along the river.

What you see

From the outside, the market is a long, low building whose river front is best seen from the left bank, or from the footbridge that crosses to it. At the upstream end stand San Antón and its bridge, the image on the city's coat of arms; at the other end the building reaches toward the Arenal and the Merced bridge.

Inside the Ribera market, the hall lit by its skylights and great stained-glass window
Inside the Ribera market, the hall lit by its skylights and great stained-glass windowAlberto-g-rovi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

Inside, the stalls are grouped by trade: fish, shellfish and salt cod; meat, charcuterie and poultry; fruit, vegetables, eggs and mushrooms; and an area where small farms sell their own produce directly. Look up at the stained glass and the way light falls through the floors, which is what Ispizua designed the building around.

A section of the market holds bars where you can eat pintxos and drink, and it fills at the end of the morning and in the early evening. It is an easy place to see the city's own foods together before eating them elsewhere; the eating and drinking page explains what the dishes are.

San Antón, next door

The Ribera market and the San Antón church seen across the river on a rainy day
The Ribera market and the San Antón church seen across the river on a rainy dayJ.A. Ipistarreñu, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

The market's upstream neighbor is the church of San Antón, the most popular church in Bilbao and the one shown on its coat of arms. A warehouse for river goods stood on the site almost three hundred years before it; in 1334 a fortress and a wall that doubled as a flood dike were built here, and a first church replaced them, consecrated in 1433.

The present church is late Gothic, from the end of the fifteenth century, with three stepped naves under rib vaults. Its Renaissance porch was designed in 1544 and carved between 1546 and 1548 by a team led by Guiot de Beaugrant, and its bell tower is Baroque. One corner of the south nave is cut off at an angle to let the river's water pass, and the 1983 flood carried away most of its furnishings.

How to visit

Shoppers at the stalls under the white vaulted roof of the Ribera market
Shoppers at the stalls under the white vaulted roof of the Ribera marketMentxuwiki, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Allow an hour for the stalls and longer if you stop to eat. The market works to traders' hours, busiest in the morning, and many stalls close by early afternoon; check the market's own timetable before going specially, because hours differ between the stalls and the bars.

It is one of the easiest places in the city to reach. The Zazpikaleak/Casco Viejo Metro station is a few minutes away, the riverside tram stops at Ribera, and the Euskotren station at Atxuri is about three minutes' walk. The getting around page explains the lines.

The octagonal skylight over a hall of the Ribera market
The octagonal skylight over a hall of the Ribera marketAinars Brūvelis, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Combine it with a walk through the Seven Streets, a look inside San Antón, and the Plaza Nueva, all within a few minutes on foot. The market sits at the start of the walk down the river on the homepage.

Honest notes

The claim to be the biggest covered market in Europe is often repeated and comes from the 1990 record for the most traders and stalls; other markets claim the title by other measures. It is certainly very large, but much of the building is circulation and light rather than stalls.

The white vaulted roof of the Ribera market, skylights leading to the stained-glass window
The white vaulted roof of the Ribera market, skylights leading to the stained-glass windowRob Oo from NL, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

This is a working market first. Photographing stalls is common, but traders are serving customers; buy something, keep out of the way at busy times, and ask before photographing people.

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