Visitors book a day in Gernika expecting to stand in front of a painting. The painting is 400 kilometres away in Madrid. What the town holds is a museum about the bombing that produced it, and on Saturday afternoons that museum costs nothing.
When is the Gernika Peace Museum free? The Gernika Peace Museum charges nothing on Saturday afternoons, 4pm to 6pm in winter and 4pm to 7pm in summer. At other times a regular ticket costs €6.50 and the reduced rate €4.50. It closes completely from 1 to 26 January for annual maintenance.
The Gernika Peace Museum is the museum of the 1937 bombing and of peace studies, on Foru plaza in Gernika-Lumo, 33 kilometres from Bilbao.
Where the painting actually is
Picasso’s Guernica is not in Gernika and never has been. The canvas hangs in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, which is worth knowing before building a day trip around seeing it.
That does not empty the visit. The Peace Museum covers the bombing itself, its aftermath and the wider question of peace and human rights, and the Documentation Centre attached to it holds a consultable archive on the bombing for anyone who wants the sources rather than the summary.
The distinction matters for planning. This is a day about a town and an event, not about an artwork, and the museum is built accordingly: the visit takes about an hour and a half and rewards reading rather than photographing.
Tickets, and the long list of people who do not pay
A regular ticket is €6.50 and the reduced rate €4.50, applied to groups, students, pensioners, large families and pilgrims, as published by the Gernika Peace Museum. The temporary exhibition on its own costs €3.
Free admission covers five categories, and only one of them depends on the clock:
- Under-12s, on any day of the year
- Disabled visitors, on production of documentation
- ICOM cardholders and accredited Basque Country teachers
- Everyone, on Saturday afternoons
- Everyone again, on the commemorative days listed below
In short, free admission covers more categories than the price list suggests: under-12s, disabled visitors, ICOM cardholders, accredited teachers from the Basque Country, and everyone at all on a Saturday afternoon.
There is also a scatter of free days across the year tied to commemorations, among them the anniversary of the bombing in April, International Museum Day in May, International Day of Peace in September and Human Rights Day in December.
| Ticket | Price | Who or when |
|---|---|---|
| Regular | €6.50 | Any visitor |
| Reduced | €4.50 | Groups, students, pensioners, large families, pilgrims |
| Temporary exhibition only | €3 | Visiting the temporary show alone |
| Memoritour, city of memory | €10 | Regular price for the guided route |
| Memoritour reduced | €8 | Same profiles as the reduced ticket |
| Saturday afternoon | Free | 4pm to 6pm winter, 4pm to 7pm summer |
| Under-12 | Free | Any day |
Two extras are sold separately. The Memoritour, Gernika city of memory, runs at €10 regular and €8 reduced, and the town’s tourist office sells a single pass bundling several Gernika museums.
The calendar has four versions, and one of them is closed
The museum does not keep a single timetable. It runs four seasonal blocks, and the differences decide whether a Monday or a January trip works at all.
From 16 March to 18 October, according to the Gernika Peace Museum, it opens Monday 10am to 2.30pm, Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 7pm and Sunday 10am to 2.30pm. That is the only stretch of the year with Mondays open.
From 27 January to 15 March and again from 19 October to 29 December, Mondays are closed, Tuesday to Friday runs 10am to 6pm, Saturday splits into 10am-2.30pm and 4pm-6pm, and Sunday is mornings only.
Then the hard stop. From 1 to 26 January the museum closes completely for annual maintenance, and December adds closures on the 24th, 25th, 30th and 31st. A winter city break built around Gernika can land on a month with no museum at all.
One more detail catches late arrivals: the ticket desk shuts 30 minutes before the museum does.
Getting there and what sits around the museum
The train is the practical option. Euskotren line E4 covers Bilbao to Gernika in about 61 minutes from Matiko, stopping at Zazpikaleak in the Old Town three minutes after departure. Frequencies, last trains and the Saturday night services are set out in the guide to the Bilbao to Mundaka and Bermeo train.
By road the town is 33 kilometres from Bilbao, 30 from the airport at Loiu and 14 from the motorway at Amorebieta.
Everything worth seeing sits within a short walk of Foru plaza 1, where the museum stands opposite the town hall and beside the cultural centre, about 50 metres from the tourist office and the church of Santa María. The Casa de Juntas de Gernika, the Museo Euskal Herria and the park of the peoples of Europe are all adjacent.
The museum itself provides audio guides through its website, marks its route with yellow arrows in and black arrows out, and offers an accessible entrance, a four-person lift with braille numbering, accessible toilets and transcriptions of the audiovisual pieces.
Planning the day
- Want it free → Saturday afternoon, from 4pm
- Travelling in January → the museum is shut from the 1st to the 26th
- It is a Monday → only open 16 March to 18 October, and only until 2.30pm
- Arriving late → the ticket desk closes half an hour before the museum
- Travelling with children → under-12s enter free every day
- Sunday visitor → doors close at 2.30pm, so make it a morning
What the Documentation Centre holds
Attached to the museum sits a Documentation Centre on the bombing of Gernika, and it is the part of the institution that does not appear on a standard visit. It keeps a consultable archive, runs research work and publishes its own material.
For anyone whose interest in the town is historical rather than touristic, that changes what a day here can be: the exhibition takes an hour and a half, and the archive is where the sources behind it are held.
Extending the trip down the estuary
Gernika works as a stop rather than a terminus. The same rail line continues to Mundaka and Bermeo at the mouth of the Urdaibai estuary, so a single ticket covers a town, a harbour and a fishing port in one day.
From Bermeo, buses run west towards Gaztelugatxe, where entry is free and capped at 1,462 people a day, with a booking system that only applies on controlled-access days. The rules and the bus frequencies are in the guide to Gaztelugatxe from Bilbao.
Anyone stringing free museum slots together has a workable week: Saturday afternoon in Gernika, Wednesday at Euskal Museoa in Bilbao and Sunday from 5pm at the Itsasmuseum, as compared in the guide to Bilbao’s museums.
Frequently asked questions about Gernika
Is Picasso’s Guernica in Gernika?
No. The painting hangs in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, not in the town it is named after. What Gernika holds is the Peace Museum, built around the 1937 bombing and the idea of peace rather than around the canvas.
How much is the Gernika Peace Museum?
A regular ticket is €6.50 and the reduced rate €4.50, covering groups, students, pensioners, large families and pilgrims. The temporary exhibition alone is €3, and under-12s enter free on any day.
When is the Gernika Peace Museum free?
On Saturday afternoons, from 4pm to 6pm in winter and 4pm to 7pm in summer. Under-12s, disabled visitors, ICOM cardholders and accredited Basque teachers also enter free at any time.
How do you get from Bilbao to Gernika?
By Euskotren line E4, which takes about 61 minutes from Matiko and calls at Zazpikaleak in the Old Town three minutes after departure. By road Gernika-Lumo is 33 kilometres from Bilbao and 30 from the airport.
Is the Gernika Peace Museum ever closed for a long period?
Yes. It closes from 1 to 26 January for annual maintenance, and again on 24, 25, 30 and 31 December. Outside the 16 March to 18 October window it also closes on Mondays.
An hour of train and a Saturday afternoon buy the whole of Gernika without a ticket.