bill in the basque country 2010: on the road (deba, guernica, bermeo, lekeitio)...
The previous posts can be found here and here.
On September 6th we picked up our Citroën Berlingo at the rent-a-car and started our road trip through the Basque Country.
Of course, we could just as well have taken the train or the bus from Bilbao to any destination, there is a pretty awesome network of public transport in the Basque Country, but in retrospect I'm so glad we decided to rent a car because we would have missed out on so many things.
We avoided the motorway whenever it was possible and stuck to highways and ordinary roads instead, and it was SO WORTH IT. The countryside is breathtakingly beautiful, as you will see when you look at the pictures. There's everything you can imagine: green fields, hills, mountains (and occasionally rather dangerous serpentine roads XD), vineyards, olive trees, rivers, and of course the Atlantic Ocean when you drive along the coast. Words can't do it justice.
On the road.
Our Berlingo. We had actually rented a smaller car, but they didn't have it at the rent-a-car, so they gave us this for the same price. It wasn't really that great for the serpentine roads, but we had no problem stowing away our luggage, which definitely is an advantage.
It rained twice while we were on the road, but that didn't spoil anything.
The ocean on your left, huge mountains on your right, what more can you want?
The town of Deba offers a great panoramic view.
Bilingual sign tellling you that the water temperature is 21°C and the tide sets in at 4:55 in the afternoon.
Deba in the background.
The location is obviously excellent for fishing.
*happy sigh*
Back on the road.
There is actually a place called Amorebieta near Bilbao. XDDD
Of course we had to stop at a Petronor petrol station. ;)
Near Guernica, there is a painted wood which we wanted to visit, but you have to walk about 40 minutes to this wood and there were so many aggressive horseflies that after a while we decided to go back. :/ Fortunately there are pics of the Bosque Pintado online, like this one.
Guernica.
Guernica, the "city of peace", is a little town in Biscay and is best known as the scene of a bombing by the Condor Legion of Nazi Germany's air force in April 1937. The attack was ordered by General Franco with the intention of overthrowing the Basque Government and the Spanish Republican Government as well as experimenting for the blitzkrieg tactics and bombing of civilians seen in later wars. For almost four hours bombs rained down on Guernica, devastated the town and killed 1,654 civilians according to the official Basque figures. Miraculously the historical Biscayan assembly and the Oak of Guernica, the legendary tree, survived. Picasso painted his famous "Guernica" painting (exhibited in the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid) to commemorate the horrors of the bombing.
The Basques don't take their bilingualism that seriously sometimes. ;)
If it weren't for the little signs, like the white P in the blue square, we wouldn't even have known where to park our car. So we kept following the "alde zaharra" signs ("alte Sahara" means "old Sahara desert" in German, so we had quite a laugh), not knowing what it actually means. A day later, in Vitoria, we found a bilingual sign of "alde zaharra" and realised it means "old town". LOL.
The Casa de Juntas used to be the seat of the parliament of the province of Biscay, whose executive branch is located in Bilbao. The house is open for visitors and really beautiful.
The "Tree of Guernica". By ancient tradition Basques and other peoples in Medieval Europe, held assemblies under a tree, usually an oak, to discuss matters affecting the community. The laws of Biscay continued to be drawn up under this tree until 1876, with each town and village in the province sending two representatives to the sessions, known as General Assemblies.
Definitely an oak tree. ;)
This door leads to the assembly room.
The building has beautiful stained-glass windows...
... and a ceiling of stained glass which shows the Oak of Guernica as well as mosaics of the coat of arms of many Biscayan cities.
Like the church and bridge of San Antón, the coat of arms of Bilbao which can also be found in Athletic Bilbao's crest.
The Casa de Juntas in miniature.
There is a lot of information about the assembly and the history of the city and the province.
The province of Biscay.
The geographical Basque Country, complete with Navarra/Nafarroa and the Basque provinces of France. The political Basque Country, i.e. the autonomous community, only includes the provinces Vizcaya, Guipúzcoa and Álava.
The Assembly.
The new Tree, planted in 2004 to replace the old one, which is preserved as a dry stump near the assembly house.
The Euskal Herria Museum, a museum of the Basque culture, country and language. Unfortunately it was Monday when we visited Guernica, and all museums are closed on Mondays. :/
So we visited the Park of the Peoples of Europe instead, which contains examples of all four types of woodland found on the Basque coast: beech woods, oak woods, holmoak woods and riverside brush.
A memorial for Wilhelm von Humboldt, who studied the Basque language and researched it on visits to the Basque Country. The memorial calls him a Friend of the Basques.
There were tons of sparrows in the Basque Country!
The main square.
I assume this is the town hall.
If I'm not entirely mistaken, this is the Church of Santa María de la Antigua.
Bermeo.
We stopped in Bermeo because our travel brochure said that the town had a nice harbour. According to Wikipedia 17,049 people are living in Bermeo, but the town was really tiny so I don't really believe that. ;) But it's the most important fishing port of the Basque Country.
The town hall.
Sculptures looking at the harbour.
Boats!
More boats!
Bermeo harbour from the other end of the quay.
Lekeitio.
Lekeitio is a beautiful little fishing town with a great beach and harbour. When we were planning the trip, we originally intended to stay at a hotel in Guernica and visit Vitoria and Lekeitio from there, but then we couldn't find any hotels anywhere in Guernica. In retrospect, we could just as well have spent two more nights in Bilbao and San Sebastián respectively instead of renting a room in yet another hotel because the distances in the Basque Country really aren't that big (tor instance, you get from Bilbao to San Sebastián in about 2.5 hours without even using the motorway), but I'm not going to complain, the hotel in Lekeitio was beautiful and the service was great.
Our hotel, which was hidden really well and which we only managed to find after asking local townsfolk. Fortunately, the Basque people are wonderful, friendly and always eager to help. Sometimes we basically just stood somewhere, focusing on our map and looking confused, and people came up to us and asked if they could assist us.
On our way to the harbour...
More boats!
The church of Santa María in the background.
And yet more boats! I loved the little flags on this one.
This is me trying myself at arty photography. Not very successfully, but well.
One of the beaches.
Anchor!
Beautiful, no?
There are also some really good bars at the harbour where you can have an excellent lunch. We had some little bocadillos with tuna and some pintxos with peppers, olives and anchovies, nom nom nom.
To be continued in the next posts, where you will find pictures of Vitoria, Athletic Bilbao's training centre, and San Sebastián. Stay tuned! :D
On September 6th we picked up our Citroën Berlingo at the rent-a-car and started our road trip through the Basque Country.
Of course, we could just as well have taken the train or the bus from Bilbao to any destination, there is a pretty awesome network of public transport in the Basque Country, but in retrospect I'm so glad we decided to rent a car because we would have missed out on so many things.
We avoided the motorway whenever it was possible and stuck to highways and ordinary roads instead, and it was SO WORTH IT. The countryside is breathtakingly beautiful, as you will see when you look at the pictures. There's everything you can imagine: green fields, hills, mountains (and occasionally rather dangerous serpentine roads XD), vineyards, olive trees, rivers, and of course the Atlantic Ocean when you drive along the coast. Words can't do it justice.
On the road.
Our Berlingo. We had actually rented a smaller car, but they didn't have it at the rent-a-car, so they gave us this for the same price. It wasn't really that great for the serpentine roads, but we had no problem stowing away our luggage, which definitely is an advantage.
It rained twice while we were on the road, but that didn't spoil anything.
The ocean on your left, huge mountains on your right, what more can you want?
The town of Deba offers a great panoramic view.
Bilingual sign tellling you that the water temperature is 21°C and the tide sets in at 4:55 in the afternoon.
Deba in the background.
The location is obviously excellent for fishing.
*happy sigh*
Back on the road.
There is actually a place called Amorebieta near Bilbao. XDDD
Of course we had to stop at a Petronor petrol station. ;)
Near Guernica, there is a painted wood which we wanted to visit, but you have to walk about 40 minutes to this wood and there were so many aggressive horseflies that after a while we decided to go back. :/ Fortunately there are pics of the Bosque Pintado online, like this one.
Guernica.
Guernica, the "city of peace", is a little town in Biscay and is best known as the scene of a bombing by the Condor Legion of Nazi Germany's air force in April 1937. The attack was ordered by General Franco with the intention of overthrowing the Basque Government and the Spanish Republican Government as well as experimenting for the blitzkrieg tactics and bombing of civilians seen in later wars. For almost four hours bombs rained down on Guernica, devastated the town and killed 1,654 civilians according to the official Basque figures. Miraculously the historical Biscayan assembly and the Oak of Guernica, the legendary tree, survived. Picasso painted his famous "Guernica" painting (exhibited in the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid) to commemorate the horrors of the bombing.
The Basques don't take their bilingualism that seriously sometimes. ;)
If it weren't for the little signs, like the white P in the blue square, we wouldn't even have known where to park our car. So we kept following the "alde zaharra" signs ("alte Sahara" means "old Sahara desert" in German, so we had quite a laugh), not knowing what it actually means. A day later, in Vitoria, we found a bilingual sign of "alde zaharra" and realised it means "old town". LOL.
The Casa de Juntas used to be the seat of the parliament of the province of Biscay, whose executive branch is located in Bilbao. The house is open for visitors and really beautiful.
The "Tree of Guernica". By ancient tradition Basques and other peoples in Medieval Europe, held assemblies under a tree, usually an oak, to discuss matters affecting the community. The laws of Biscay continued to be drawn up under this tree until 1876, with each town and village in the province sending two representatives to the sessions, known as General Assemblies.
Definitely an oak tree. ;)
This door leads to the assembly room.
The building has beautiful stained-glass windows...
... and a ceiling of stained glass which shows the Oak of Guernica as well as mosaics of the coat of arms of many Biscayan cities.
Like the church and bridge of San Antón, the coat of arms of Bilbao which can also be found in Athletic Bilbao's crest.
The Casa de Juntas in miniature.
There is a lot of information about the assembly and the history of the city and the province.
The province of Biscay.
The geographical Basque Country, complete with Navarra/Nafarroa and the Basque provinces of France. The political Basque Country, i.e. the autonomous community, only includes the provinces Vizcaya, Guipúzcoa and Álava.
The Assembly.
The new Tree, planted in 2004 to replace the old one, which is preserved as a dry stump near the assembly house.
The Euskal Herria Museum, a museum of the Basque culture, country and language. Unfortunately it was Monday when we visited Guernica, and all museums are closed on Mondays. :/
So we visited the Park of the Peoples of Europe instead, which contains examples of all four types of woodland found on the Basque coast: beech woods, oak woods, holmoak woods and riverside brush.
A memorial for Wilhelm von Humboldt, who studied the Basque language and researched it on visits to the Basque Country. The memorial calls him a Friend of the Basques.
There were tons of sparrows in the Basque Country!
The main square.
I assume this is the town hall.
If I'm not entirely mistaken, this is the Church of Santa María de la Antigua.
Bermeo.
We stopped in Bermeo because our travel brochure said that the town had a nice harbour. According to Wikipedia 17,049 people are living in Bermeo, but the town was really tiny so I don't really believe that. ;) But it's the most important fishing port of the Basque Country.
The town hall.
Sculptures looking at the harbour.
Boats!
More boats!
Bermeo harbour from the other end of the quay.
Lekeitio.
Lekeitio is a beautiful little fishing town with a great beach and harbour. When we were planning the trip, we originally intended to stay at a hotel in Guernica and visit Vitoria and Lekeitio from there, but then we couldn't find any hotels anywhere in Guernica. In retrospect, we could just as well have spent two more nights in Bilbao and San Sebastián respectively instead of renting a room in yet another hotel because the distances in the Basque Country really aren't that big (tor instance, you get from Bilbao to San Sebastián in about 2.5 hours without even using the motorway), but I'm not going to complain, the hotel in Lekeitio was beautiful and the service was great.
Our hotel, which was hidden really well and which we only managed to find after asking local townsfolk. Fortunately, the Basque people are wonderful, friendly and always eager to help. Sometimes we basically just stood somewhere, focusing on our map and looking confused, and people came up to us and asked if they could assist us.
On our way to the harbour...
More boats!
The church of Santa María in the background.
And yet more boats! I loved the little flags on this one.
This is me trying myself at arty photography. Not very successfully, but well.
One of the beaches.
Anchor!
Beautiful, no?
There are also some really good bars at the harbour where you can have an excellent lunch. We had some little bocadillos with tuna and some pintxos with peppers, olives and anchovies, nom nom nom.
To be continued in the next posts, where you will find pictures of Vitoria, Athletic Bilbao's training centre, and San Sebastián. Stay tuned! :D