Visiting the Fournier Playing Card Museum in Vitoria-Gasteiz

The Fournier Playing Card Museum of Álava, part of the BIBAT complex and housed in the Bendaña Palace in Vitoria-Gasteiz, holds one of the most significant playing card collections in the world, originally assembled by Félix Alfaro Fournier. With more than 24,000 items from all five continents, the visit allows you to explore at your own pace a heritage spanning centuries of history, art and culture through the medium of cards. The route begins in the palace courtyard, where different printing techniques used to produce playing cards are explained. The first floor brings together some of the oldest pieces in the collection, including medieval European decks, while the second floor organises the collection by theme: heraldry, mythology, geography, tarot, astronomy, literature and more. Within a journey through Álava or the Basque Country, this museum offers a genuinely distinctive stop: a space that connects local history — the story of the Fournier company in Vitoria-Gasteiz — with a cultural dimension that few collections anywhere can match.