Museo San Telmo (San Telmo Museum), San Sebastian (must see)

The San Telmo Museum doesn’t so much stand at the foot of Mount Urgull as it stages a centuries-long performance, with each act changing the set. It began in 1562, when a Dominican convent was built here and dedicated to Saint Elmo, patron saint of sailors. Back then San Sebastián was a fortified port town, and the friars were spiritual lifeguards for a community living by the tides. The Gothic church and Renaissance cloister they left behind still frame the story, solid and austere yet edged with a touch of elegance.

Time, of course, had its way with the convent. The 19th century expelled the friars and conscripted the building as a military barracks-proof that even sacred walls can end up drafted. By 1929, the city reclaimed the site, and a few years later it reemerged as the San Telmo Museum, encouraged by the Royal Basque Society of Friends of the Country. Founded in 1765, that society aimed to foster culture and industry, and here they secured a stage for Basque history itself.

The plot thickened in 2011, when the convent got a sleek new co-star: glass-and-steel pavilions clad in aluminum panels punctured with plant life. Suddenly, the oldest museum in the Basque Country looked very much alive in the 21st century.

Step inside, and the exhibits unfold like scenes in a kaleidoscope: prehistoric tools beside Basque folk costumes, Renaissance canvases by El Greco and Sorolla, football jerseys, bicycles, and modernist experiments by Oteiza, Chillida, and Zumeta. The former church, meanwhile, wears its history in grand murals by José María Sert, transforming devotion into drama.

San Telmo is less a museum than a mirror: it reflects the contradictions and continuities of Basque identity. Wander its cloisters or its aluminum-paneled halls, and you’ll sense how this city has always balanced the pull of tradition with the lure of reinvention.