Basque Country

When you talk about Basque Country in Spain, you have to be very careful not to refer to it as being part of Spain, for risk of offending Basque nationalists, nor to refer to it as its own country, as it isn't that either, as much as some Basques might like it to be. In fact, Basque (as well as Catalunian) nationalism might be THE hot-button issues in Spain, politically speaking. This, as well as what I have heard about how wonderful the land and the people are, made me really want to see this part of Spain before I left. Luckily, I got to, and it was amazing.

First, a little geography.



You can see the Basque country/territory there on the Northern coast. It's a relatively small piece of land, but one which has ignited a lot of tempers, tirades and terrorism. (See articles on Basque nationalism and ETA http://edition.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/21/spain.basque/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4832672.stm --the second article was the biggest news story in Europe for a while).

Well, all of that nonsense aside, Basque country, and the entire northern part of Spain, is perhaps the most beautiful place I've ever visited. Here are some pictures that are fairly poor representaions of just how beautiful it is there (but they do their best):



Every bend you come around is a new view, and every single one is postcard-worthy. The entire place is absolutely picturesque and I understand now why they're so proud of their land.

I drove up there with my friend Alvaro, with whom I've been doing a language exchange (half English, half Spanish), for semana santa (All of Spain gets time off for easter; we got a whole week off from school Spring Break style). He has family there, pretty distant family actually, that owns a hotel, and when we got there they were extremely hospitable. We ate at the hotel once or twice a day; the food was amazing and they eat a TON of it. Seriously, the Basques are famous for the amount that they eat, and justly so. We went to a restaurant and ordered the menu del dia (menu of the day) and they brought out veritable mountains of food, all for the same price you'd pay anywhere else in Spain for maybe half as much. I made the comment that if I lived there, I'd definitely be a little bit fat.

Anyway, his family was amazing and really went out of their way to make us feel at home. We were staying in an albergue -- which I suppose translates to something like backpacker lodge -- in a small town on the coast, Lekeitio, about 45 minutes from where the family lives, and we'd drive over there every day and visit and take excursions with them, etc. One day we went to see San Juan, which is this amazing island/rock formation off the coast not far from where we were, which a church on the top:



I made the comment that someday I'm going to have a house there. It's my new life goal. This picture



was taken from on top of the mountain. As I say, everywhere is picturesque.

We spent most of the trip just cruising around the northern shore/resting when we had time. And eating of course. We did take a day trip down to Bilbao and the Guggenheim museum, which is really incredible.



There's this gigantic sculpture of a dog made out of flowers out front (look at the size of the kid for scale reference):



Couldn't take any pictures inside of the museum itself, but it's awesome -- the architecture is absolutely stunning and the exhibitions they have are great.

We also went to France!! We wanted to drive out to San Sebastian for a day, and once you get there it's only another 45 minutes or so across the French border. Here's a picture from the French coastal town of Biarritz:



There's definitely a marked difference between Spanish Basque country and French basque country, the most notable being that in French Basque country they don't really speak Basque.

Then we did stop in San Sebastian -- the wealthiest and most expensive city in Spain, and the hotbed of Basque nationalism -- on our way back to Mundaka, where the hotel is. It's another great city, and though we weren't there for too long, I loved what I saw of it.

Here's a picture from downtown:


and another picture of a little Basque nationalist protest. Looks like somebody made the mistake of putting up a Spanish flag, so some separatists made their own statement:



So it was really a great trip. We had cheap, good lodgings, and ate like kings the whole time, mostly for free. I really fell in love with that part of Spain.. er, of the Iberian peninsula.

Here's a picture of me and Alvaro with some of his family: