During our planned stay in Bilbao, the Gran Hotel Puente Colgante in Portugalete (adjacent to the bridge) was too appealing to ignore. With the Portugalete station nearby and the very useful Barik card (which also works for the Vizcaya Bridge), choosing Portugalete instead of central Bilbao turned out to be an excellent choice for us. 

We visited the platform just before sunset on our first day and the views were incredible. The vibrations you feel when the gondola is moving might startle some visitors. Since our hotel was less than 100 meters from the bridge, we woke up every morning with the bridge in our window / balcony view. We crossed multiple times over the next three days with our Barik card for groceries (yes we carried bags of groceries across), dinner/drinks, and shopping. Views of the bridge can be rewarding up and down both promenades that line the estuary or from viewpoints around the nearby Basilica on the hill.

Evenings were festive during the holiday season, so taking strolls on the promenade in Portugalete or Getxo was always appealing. Bilbao's efficient metro connected us easily with everything we wished to see in the city center. Understandably, Vizcaya Bridge is a relatively short visit for most travelers -  either to the platform, the promenade views, and/or the gondola across. Yet, I would suggest considering Portugalete as an option worth considering for your accommodations. You will likely be rewarded with some beautiful mornings and sunsets. Moreover, the bridge remains an important mode of transit for the people who live in Portugalete and Getxo, thus the Vizcaya bridge for us became both a monument to admire and a useful resource during our stay.

While there are plenty of historical bridges on the World Heritage List, there are not so many bridges inscribed as a single monument. My experience visiting Vizcaya Bridge (Spain) was not so different than my visit to the Forth Bridge (Scotland) and the Brooklyn Bridge (USA). Assuming the later will be inscribed one day, these historic bridges have been enjoyable subjects of photography for me. Searching for the right angle / viewpoint or using various foreground and background focus. Thus my visits tended to go well beyond the 15-30 minutes it often takes to 'tick' a world heritage bridge.

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