Best Time to Visit Gaztelugatxe: Reservation Dates, Weather & Time of Day

The most-reviewed Gaztelugatxe day trip from Bilbao, with the access slot included on reservation days, is below.

Which time of year suits which visit

If you want	Choose	What it costs
The best overall balance for a first visit	June or September	A reservation is needed on most of these days, and September has about 9 rainy days at Bilbao Airport against about 7 in June
The warmest weather	July and August	Peak visitor period, with a reservation every day and full car parks in the middle of the day
Your best bet for fewer people, without a reservation	A weekday outside the access control dates, from late September to mid-June except Easter and holidays	No guarantee of a quiet path, and more rain than in summer: about 10 to 14 rainy days a month from October to May at Bilbao Airport
The fewest ticket days	November to February	11 to 14 rainy days a month at Bilbao Airport and the shortest days, with sunset between about 5:35 and 6:40 p.m. in mid-month
Easter	Only if your dates are fixed	One of the busiest periods of the year, with a reservation every day of the Easter fortnight

In 2019, the last full year the council published, August brought about 155,000 visitors and July about 95,000, against about 73,000 in September and about 78,000 in April, the month of Easter that year. Since then the council has capped reservation days at 1,462 people.

Other experiences you might enjoy

Around Bermeo, Mundaka, Gernika, Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum and the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve, you can add txakoli winery visits, pintxos tours, surf lessons and San Sebastián day trips to a Basque Country trip.

Reservation dates through the year

Entry to San Juan de Gaztelugatxe is free. On the dates the provincial council marks for access control you need a free timed ticket from the official reservation site, and on every other day you walk in without one. The council says the tickets are required “in view of possible access restrictions due to overcrowding”, and it caps numbers at 1,462 people a day.

The 2026 calendar set these reservation days:

Period in 2026	Reservation needed
January and February	No days
March 28 to April 12 (Easter)	Every day
Mid-April to mid-June	Weekends, plus May 1 to 3
June 15 to September 20	Every day
Late September to October	Weekends, plus October 12
November and December	November 1, December 5 to 8 and December 30

The 2025 calendar followed the same pattern with slightly different edges: every day from April 12 to May 4, every day from June 8 to September 21, and weekends in spring and October. The 2027 calendar has not been published yet, and tickets can only be booked for the current year, so check the official site once your dates are fixed.

Reservation days can sell out. On October 1, 2026, the official booking system showed no slots left for October 10, 11, 12 and 17 or for November 1, and only one or two left on most other October weekend days. Cancelled tickets come back, but if your date matters, book early or take a tour with access included. The full-day coastal tour with Bermeo, Mundaka, Gernika and a txakoli winery holds a slot for the group, and so do the six-hour tour with Mundaka and Gernika and the small-group hike from Bilbao.

The ticket is for a set time. If you have not arrived 60 minutes after it, the booking is cancelled, and a no-show stops you making another reservation for a year. Our Gaztelugatxe tickets and reservations guide covers the booking steps.

Rain, wind and the walk

The visit is a walk, and all of it is outdoors. You go down the Urizarreta path, which the council describes as 1,200 m at a 35% gradient, cross the stone causeway, climb 241 steps to the hermitage, and come back up by the Ermu path, 1,600 m at 15%. The council allows about two and a half hours. Toilets are only at the Urizarreta and Ermu access points.

The nearest official long-term averages are for Bilbao Airport, about 20 km southwest and inland. The islet sits on the open coast, so expect more wind there than the airport figures suggest.

Month	Bilbao Airport average high	Rainy days	Rainfall
April	18°C	About 12	97 mm
May	21°C	About 10	76 mm
June	24°C	About 7	58 mm
July	26°C	About 7	52 mm
August	26°C	About 7	53 mm
September	25°C	About 9	75 mm
October	22°C	About 11	112 mm

A rainy day here means 1 mm of rain or more, and rainfall is the total for the month, where 25 mm is about an inch. June to August have the fewest rainy days, about 7 a month, and September is close behind with about 9, so June and September average about 7 to 9 rainy days a month. The differences between June, July and August are small, so treat them as one dry stretch rather than ranking a single driest month. Spring and October have 10 to 12, and November has the most rain of the year, with about 14 rainy days and 171 mm.

The council advises checking Euskalmet’s forecast for the day of your visit, and on orange-alert days it recommends not climbing to the hermitage during the affected hours. It has closed access in bad weather: on September 25, 2020 for an orange wave alert, until the sea calmed, and on the afternoon of January 16, 2023 for a storm of rain and wind. We found no weather closure reported in 2024, 2025 or 2026. The tour operators we checked run in the rain; Buendía, which runs the full-day coastal tour, says the excursion goes ahead even if it rains and recommends a raincoat.

Bring a waterproof layer and shoes with grip in any month, and sun protection and water in summer.

How busy it gets

The busiest months are July and August, and Easter week brings some of the busiest single days. In 2019, before the daily cap, the council counted about 728,000 visitors, with about 155,000 in August and about 95,000 in July. Easter is a major busy period: in 2019 the council counted about 59,000 visitors over Holy Week, with more than 8,000 on each of Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Easter 2025 brought 6,500 visitors in five days under the cap, and on Holy Saturday the count reached 1,429, close to the limit of 1,462.

The council publishes no monthly counts after 2019, so for the rest of the year the best guide is its own reservation calendar: it requires tickets on the dates it expects overcrowding, so a weekday with no reservation is likely to be quieter than a ticket day, although no count shows by how much. For the direction of the season on the wider coast, hotel stays on the Bizkaia coast in 2025 ran from about 11,000 nights in January to about 49,000 in August, with June and September at about 35,000 and 33,000. That series counts hotel and guesthouse nights only, not day-trippers from Bilbao, so it shows the shape of the year, not the number of people on the steps.

Time of day

The council says the car parks are usually full between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. If you drive in summer, book an entry time before 10 a.m. or after 4 p.m., or leave the car in Bakio or Bermeo and take the bus or walk the coastal path, as the council recommends. Sunset is around 9:50 p.m. in mid-June and 8:20 p.m. in mid-September, so a late start leaves plenty of light in summer.

On a reservation day your ticket sets the entry time. On a guided tour that includes access, the operator books the slot and sets the order of the day; Buendía’s full-day coastal tour can move the winery earlier depending on the slot the authorities assign.

In winter, start by early afternoon. There are about 9 hours of daylight in mid-December, against about 15½ hours in mid-June. Sunset falls at about 5:35 p.m. in mid-December and 6:00 p.m. in mid-January, and with about two and a half hours for the walk, a late start can finish in the dark.

Check your date

Your date at Gaztelugatxe

Choose a date to see whether it needs a free reservation, the forecast rain and wind for the walking hours when the date is within about two weeks (long-term averages for Bilbao Airport otherwise), public holidays and local feast days, and sunrise and sunset.

The 2026 calendar requires a reservation every day from June 15 to September 20, over Easter, and on most spring and fall weekends and a few holidays. On every other day entry is free with no ticket.

Reservation days come from the provincial council’s official 2026 calendar; later years are shown as unpublished until the council releases them. The forecast is from Open-Meteo for the islet itself. Averages are 1991–2020 normals for Bilbao Airport, about 20 km inland, which is less exposed to wind than the causeway. Check Euskalmet’s warnings on the day: on orange-alert days the council advises against climbing to the hermitage during the affected hours.

Check tour dates or use the live calendar

Choosing the month for a wider Bilbao trip

If you are still choosing dates for Bilbao and the Basque coast as a whole, June and September suit the wider trip too: mild days, fewer rainy days than April, May or October, and fewer hotel nights on the coast than in July and August. July and August are the warmest months and the peak visitor period, and Bilbao’s Aste Nagusia festival ran from August 22 to 30 in 2026. Once your dates are fixed, the choices left for Gaztelugatxe are a weekday or a weekend, the time of day, and a tour with access included or a visit on your own.

Month by month

Month	Average high and low at Bilbao Airport	Rainy days	Daylight, mid-month	Reservation days in 2026	Local dates
January	14°C and 5°C	About 13	9h 18m	None
February	14°C and 5°C	About 11	10h 30m	None
March	17°C and 7°C	About 11	11h 52m	From March 28 (Easter)	Holy Thursday March 25 and Good Friday March 26, 2027
April	18°C and 8°C	About 12	13h 24m	Every day to April 12, then weekends
May	21°C and 11°C	About 10	14h 41m	May 1 to 3 and weekends
June	24°C and 14°C	About 7	15h 24m	Weekends, then every day from June 15	June 24: local pilgrimage, please avoid
July	26°C and 16°C	About 7	15h 07m	Every day	July 31: local pilgrimage, please avoid
August	26°C and 16°C	About 7	14h 00m	Every day	August 29 and 31: local celebrations, please avoid
September	25°C and 14°C	About 9	12h 33m	Every day to September 20, then September 26 and 27
October	22°C and 12°C	About 11	11h 05m	Weekends, plus October 12
November	17°C and 8°C	About 14	9h 43m	November 1
December	14°C and 6°C	About 12	8h 59m	December 5 to 8 and 30	December 30: local celebration, please avoid

Booking and cancelling

The tours we checked can be cancelled free up to 24 hours before the start, so you can book once your dates are fixed and decide on the forecast the day before. The official reservation is separate: if you go on your own on a reservation day, book the free ticket as well, and cancel it through the confirmation email if your plans change.

How we know

Sources and limits

Reservation dates. The official Gaztelugatxe calendars for 2026 and 2025 on public.tiketa.eus and bizkaia.eus, the reservation regulations page, and Deia’s report of September 26, 2026 confirming the remaining 2026 dates. The calendars mark the days by color, so we read each shaded day. The sell-out snapshot is the official booking system on October 1, 2026, and it changes with cancellations. The council does not publish the hours of access control or when the next year’s tickets are released.

Weather. WMO climate normals for 1991 to 2020 at Bilbao Airport (station 08025), 42 m above sea level, as archived by NOAA. A rainy day counts 1 mm or more. The airport is inland, about 20 km from the islet, and no official station on the coast nearby publishes monthly averages: the AEMET table for Matxitxako is empty and Euskalmet publishes no monthly summary for its Matxitxako station. We do not quantify how much windier the islet is. AEMET’s older 1981 to 2010 normals for the same station put August wetter, at 76 mm and about 8 rainy days, which is one more reason not to call July or August the driest month. Daylight and sunset are calculated for the islet and rounded to the minute.

Visitors. The provincial council’s counts: the 2019 full year, published in February 2020 with four months broken out, and its Easter reports for 2022 and 2025. No monthly counts after 2019 are published. Hotel stays are Eustat’s survey of tourist establishments for the Bizkaia coast zone in 2025, hotels and guesthouses only; they leave out day trips and short-term rentals.

Weather closures and advice. The council’s Gaztelugatxe page for its weather advice, parking hours and feast days; Deia’s reports of the closures on September 25, 2020 and January 16, 2023; the council’s notice of the closure on the afternoon of the August 12, 2026 eclipse. Repairs to the walls and paving on the path were announced in September 2026 with no closure dates.

What these numbers cannot tell you. No published count shows how crowded the steps are at a given hour, so the page does not rank the hours of the day by crowds, only by parking and daylight. The hotel series is a proxy for the season on the coast and does not count day-trippers. The airport averages are not a forecast for the islet.

Tours. Inclusions and cancellation terms are the operators’ listings on GetYourGuide and Buendía’s own page, checked on October 1, 2026. None of the operators we checked publishes a winter schedule, so check the live calendar for your date.

How to get there on your own is covered in how to get to Gaztelugatxe from Bilbao and Bilbao to Gaztelugatxe by bus. Which tour to book is in which Gaztelugatxe tour from Bilbao is right for you, and whether the climb suits you is in is Gaztelugatxe worth visiting.

Frequently asked questions

When do you need a reservation for Gaztelugatxe?

Only on the dates the provincial council marks for access control. The 2026 calendar sets them every day from June 15 to September 20, over Easter from March 28 to April 12, on most weekends from April to early June and from late September to October, and on a few holidays, the last being December 30. On every other day entry is free with no ticket. The 2027 calendar has not been published yet.

What is the best month to visit Gaztelugatxe?

For a first visit, June and September offer the best overall balance: about 7 to 9 rainy days a month at Bilbao Airport, against 10 to 12 in April, May and October. In 2026, July and August needed a ticket every day, while the first half of June and the last ten days of September needed one only at weekends. June has the longest days of the year.

What is the best time of day to visit San Juan de Gaztelugatxe?

If you drive in summer, book an entry time before 10 a.m. or after 4 p.m., because the council says the car parks are usually full in between. On a guided tour that includes access, the operator books the slot, so the time is part of the tour. In winter, start by early afternoon so the walk of about two and a half hours finishes before sunset.

Can you visit Gaztelugatxe in winter?

Yes. The 2026 calendar has only a few ticket days from November to February, none of them in January or February, and the islet is quieter. These months also bring 11 to 14 rainy days a month at Bilbao Airport, and sunset falls between about 5:35 and 6:40 p.m. in mid-month, so start early and check the forecast.

Can you visit Gaztelugatxe in the rain?

Yes. The tour operators we checked run in the rain, and the weather closures we found were for an orange wave alert and a storm. The causeway and steps are open to the weather, so bring a waterproof layer and shoes with grip. On orange-alert days the council advises against climbing to the hermitage during the affected hours, and it closed access on September 25, 2020 and on the afternoon of January 16, 2023.

Which days should you avoid at Gaztelugatxe?

The council asks tourists not to visit on June 24, July 31, August 29, August 31 and December 30, which are kept for local pilgrimages and celebrations. Easter is also among the busiest periods: on Holy Saturday 2025 the council counted 1,429 visitors, close to the daily cap of 1,462.

How long does a visit to Gaztelugatxe take?

The council says to allow about two and a half hours for the walk down, the causeway, the 241 steps to the hermitage and the walk back up. Day trips from Bilbao usually give about two hours at the islet.

Do tours from Bilbao include the Gaztelugatxe reservation?

The access-included tours do: the operator books the slot for the group on reservation days. A viewpoint tour does not walk to the islet, so it needs no ticket. Check the inclusions of the option you book.