Bilbao la Vieja

This guide to Bilbao la Vieja traces the neighborhood from the three stone pillars that marked its medieval boundary with respectable Bilbao, through its rise as mining country for workers hauling ore off the Miribilla hill, and into the twentieth century, when the district beside rowdy San Francisco street slid into a reputation historians describe as an underworld. It follows the church the city bought here in 1990 rather than tear down, and the muralists from across the world who later filled these streets with some of Bilbao's boldest street art.