Things to Do in Gernika-Lumo

The Assembly House and former Bizkaian parliament, known as the Casa de Juntas, Juntetxea (tel. 94-625-11-38), is a significant visitor attraction in town. The waiting room boasts a marvelous modern stained-glass ceiling (pictured above), and you can soak up the gravitas of the adjacent parliamentary hall, still used occasionally for formal business. By scanning QR codes, you will discover all about the iconic laws and customs known as the fueros. Admission is free, but you must pre-book online. Visits are on the quarter-hour, between 10:15am and 5:15pm, and last 45 minutes. Outside is the much-revered Tree of Gernika, a powerful symbol of Basque identity under whose branches the Kings of Castile used to swear allegiance to those fueros. 

Gernika’s Peace Museum, Museo de la Paz de Gernika, Foru Plaza, 1 (tel. 94-627-02-13), documents the 1937 bombing through photographs, video, and artifacts, including sobering bomb fragments bearing Luftwaffe markings. The attack lasted for up to 3 hours, as Nazi and Italian planes unloaded thousand-pound bombs on the helpless townsfolk. A recent introduction to the top-floor exhibits is a filmed interview of the few survivors still alive today. Some were as young as six at the time of the bombing, but their memories of the event are crystal-clear. The German responsibility for the indefensible act was acknowledged in 1997; and then, in 2022, the Spanish government finally issued its own condemnation of the bombing. The museum’s exhibits also address wider, more global issues of war and peace, as well as human rights. From mid-March through mid-October, it’s open Sunday and Monday 10am‒2:30pm, Tuesday to Saturday 10am‒7pm; February to mid-March and mid-October to end December it opens Tuesday to Friday 10am -6pm, Saturday 10am to 2:30pm and 4-6pm, Sunday 10am to 2:30pm. It’s closed January. Admission is 6.50€ adults, 4.50€ students and seniors, but it’s free on Saturday afternoons and always free for kids 11 and under.