The 4 star Miro Hotel Bilbao, is centrally located in front of the Guggenheim and one block away from Bilbao’s excellent Museo de Bellas Artes - this boutique hotel refurbished by Barcelona fashion designer Antonio Miro is relentlessly comfortable and daringly innovative. It’s one of the city’s sleek new fleet of hotels inspired by the world’s most talked-about and architecturally revolutionary art museum.

A powerful collection of black-and-white photographs lines the corridors and Miro’s clean, minimalist fashion palette is used to good effect in the 50 rooms, where pale beige walls and leather sofas, black carpets and marble bathrooms predominate. Dramatic, heavy, beige curtains are used instead of doors to hide the clothes-storage areas and flat-screen tvs, dvd and cd players, giving the impression of an intimate modern theatre. Floor-to-ceiling windows in the front rooms frame a view of what will one day be the new Bilbao: a park and shops, offices and apartment buildings.

Staff at the Miro are friendly, efficient and discreet: this hotel is all about merging old-fashioned service with idiosyncratic, modern touches: there’s a dvd library and a small, up-to-date gym and spa with jacuzzis and a massage room. The hip cocktail Bar Miro just off the lobby (where breakfast is served, as well as bar food) is beige and flourescent yellow. There is no restaurant but Bilbao has an outstanding range of options.