So if you expected El Goog (as the locals call it) to have transformed Bilbao into the hip, SoHo of the Basque lands, you're wrong. No, the titanium stays stolidly on the spaceship – the Bilbaoans are sticking to their blue tiles and mahogany The Martians have landed in Bilbao. Okay, that's not exactly news – by now, everyone has clocked their spacecraft, cunningly disguised as a titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum, snug in its docklands spaceport But now I understand why they chose Bilbao. If Martians wanted to slip unobtrusively into human society, Bilbao is the best place to do it. The Guggenheim arrived and no one in this city batted so much as an eyelid. So if you expected El Goog (as the locals call it) to have transformed Bilbao into the hip, SoHo of the Basque lands, you're wrong. No, the titanium stays stolidly on the spaceship – the Bilbaoans are sticking to their blue tiles and mahogany. So, not the hot spot you expected?Oh no, that's the charm of the place It's not your usual chic, cosmopolitan city.

This is a real city, with real people, living real lives, with real shops, cooking real food It is ultra cheap and unpretentiously charming. Barcelona may be the number one city in Spain but you know it's all a carefully crafted reconstruction for the international tourist market Bilbao, on the other hand, is just itself. Sure, it has been modernised in parts, but only the way those dogged Bilbaoans wanted it. The result is a small, homogenous, sometimes messy, sometimes unexpected city, set in the hills of the north coast. And – have I made my point yet – it's startlingly cheap.But isn't it crawling with tourists if it's so easy on the purse?Apparently, there was a surge after the Guggenheim landed but now everyone has realised that the outside is far more impressive than anything inside. In fact, the building is downright unfair to any artist exhibited there. Jeff Koons' monstrously show-offy, giant puppy of flowers sensibly remains outside.

But beyond the confines of El Goog, we didn't once hear an English voice. In the course of a long weekend, we didn't once find ourselves sitting in a restaurant alongside other Euro-travellers. It was wonderful – if tough – to find that barely a waiter or taxi driver or shop assistant spoke English. It is one of the most foreign places I have visited in Europe.So you were a stranger in a strange and hostile land?They couldn't be friendlier. We had only to take out our foldaway map and passing citizens would spontaneously offer us help (in fast and furious Spanish) or offer to lead us through the alleys to our chosen destination.But where exactly were you going? What else is to see?I'd be lying if I told you Bilbao is packed with the sights and wonders of Iberia.