VacationSelector
The Guggenheim Museum on the river, Bilbao
BilbaoThe Guggenheim Museum on the river
The island church from the lakeshore, Bled
BledThe island church from the lakeshore

Photos: Bilbao by José Ligero Loarte, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Bled by Philipp Schwarz, Pexels License.

Bilbao or Bled?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Bilbao for

  • food and drink
  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Bilbao’s own page.

Choose Bled for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Bled’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Bilbao 45, Bled 50: Bled leads by 5 points.
Food & drink. Bilbao 81, Bled 20: Bilbao leads by 61 points.
Culture & sights. Bilbao 62, Bled 22: Bilbao leads by 40 points.
Nightlife. Bilbao 54, Bled 5: Bilbao leads by 49 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bilbao 75, Bled 86: Bled leads by 11 points.
Day trips. Bilbao 78, Bled 70: Bilbao leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Bilbao 55, Bled 60: Bled leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Bilbao 79, Bled 58: Bilbao leads by 21 points.
Shopping & style. Bilbao 47, Bled 5: Bilbao leads by 42 points.
Affordability. Bilbao 44, Bled 45: Bled leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bilbao 53, Bled 5: Bilbao leads by 48 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bilbao 33, Bled 55: Bled leads by 22 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bilbao and Bled.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Bilbao
Best match
59match

Wins on food and drink and nightlife with your weighting.

Bled
40match

Wins on wellness and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Bilbao in July

25 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
54 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Bled in July

27 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
154 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
BilbaoBled

Where the figures come from

Bled's temperatures are measured 36 km from the centre, at Klagenfurt.

Bled has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bilbao: 1991-2020 normals, Bilbao / Sondica (4.1 km from centre). Bled: 1991-2020 normals, Klagenfurt (35.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBilbaoBled
Official languageSpanishSlovene
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation19 m501 m
Main airportBilbao Airport (BIO)5 km from centre73 non-stop destinationsLjubljana Jože Pučnik Airport (LJU)31 km from centre32 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days21 days

By the numbers

MeasureBilbaoBled
City population351,1244,969
People per km²8,44026
Museums within 10 km174
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km23
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 month-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bilbao or Bled somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.