Sitting beside Iberia's most fertile estuary, atop a mountain of iron ore, Bilbao was always destined to become one of the great industrial cities of Iberia. But Bilbao is also the cultural capital of the Basque people, who have lived in Iberia for centuries and likely millennia, longer than the Latins.

Gradually stripped of their autonomy, and their traditional culture challenged by Spaniard encroachment, much of the city's youth views 'Iberian unity' as a polite euphemism for repression. Bilbao will no doubt be the site of many political battles in coming years.