San Telmo Museum

The San Telmo Museum occupies a sixteenth-century Dominican convent, recognizable by its mix of dark, weathered stone walls and a modern, perforated aluminum extension that wraps around the hillside. This building began as a monastery before serving as a military barracks for centuries. During the Carlist Wars, soldiers carved graffiti into the cloister walls that visitors still see today. It functions now as a center for Basque society, holding the history of the region within those scarred stone corridors.