Drive to Basque Country

One last shot of Avila's castle walls.

We left early for our drive to the Basque Country, where we would be staying in the seaside town of Lekeitio. Euskadi is the proper name for the Basque homeland and it truly is a land unto itself - an autonomous region populated by a fiercly nationalistic and unique people. The Basques have been in this region of the Iberian peninsula for as long as anyone can remember, before the Celts and before the Romans - some scientists theorize that our early human ancestors simply turned into Basques in this rocky and green country. The Basques maintained their lands and their individuality against scores of inroads by parties as diverse as Romans, Visigoths, and Charlegmagne's forces, although efforts to turn Euskadi into a bona-fide independent country have met with no success. Fierce fighters, the Basques were known for their bad attitudes by the Romans and in one extremely famous incident, slew Charlegmagne's pal Sir Roland in exchange for the French force's sacking of Pamplona.

But Basques aren't just tough - they're smart. The Basques have commanded economic power entirely outsize to the population and fertility of their lands for hundreds of years, primarily through their impressive seafaring capabilities. Basques discovered rich cod-hunting lands off Newfoundland and Labrador, dominated the whaling industry, and (once their Canadian fishing rights were voided by the Bourbons,) turned their lands into a powerful center of trade, export, and import.

Everything was going beautifully for the Basques until the Spanish Civil War, when (most famously) the Basque city of Guernika was savagely bombed into oblivion by combined German and Italian forces with the blessing of Franco. After the victory of Franco, Basque culture and language was stringently repressed, forcing the Basques to go underground. But the Basques would not be defeated: the Basques bounced back from the lean years of the dictatorship with a vengeance, turning Bilbao and San Sebastian again into centers of industry and shipping.

Today, the Basques are incredibly wealthy and well educated even by EU standards - if Euskadi was an independent nation, it would boast one of the higher GDP's on the continent. For tourists, the Basque country has just about everything going for it - incredibly beautiful scenery, impressive culture and art, and what is widely considered to be the finest and most refined cuisine in Spain. If you can past the X and Z suffused language and the highly-overblown threat of terrorism from the ETA independence movement, Euskadi is one of the most interesting places in today's Europe.


We drove out of Avila fairly early and off into the plains of Castile and Leon. By now, we could anticipate what the scenery would be: rocky desert and scrubby plains punctuated with an occasional humongous castle or cathedral. The route towards Bilbao goes through many of the cities that made Castile and Leon great back in the days of the Empire - Burgos, Tordesillas, Valladolid and Huesca, among others, now dusty outposts (albeit outposts gaining some economic power in recent years). The drive was about six hours or so from beginning to end, but the landscape did eventually begin to change, as the elevation got higher and the trees got bigger and greener.



You know you're coming into Euskadi when the signs start going funny. The Basque language is utterly bizarre, and has no relatives anywhere in the world, originating as mysteriously as the Basques themselves. It is a language that contains an almost obscene quantity of X's and Z's, completely defying your standard-issue English speaker from spelling a goddamn thing. I've been back for two weeks now and I still had to look up the proper spelling of Lekeitio. Although the spelling of Basque looks like something invented by malevolent alien beings, when spoken, Basque sounds relatively normal.

As we drove further into Basque land, the landscape grew verdant, green, and rocky, composed of leafy canyons and small, high-up canyons, traditional Basque farmhouses perched at crazy angles on the side. The Basques adore apartment buildings: even the smallest canyon hamlet had a 12 story high rise apartment building sprouting out of nothing in particular. Do the Basques have something against spreading outwards and would rather keep their development moving up?

We were headed for the fishing village of Lekeitio, located on the Biscayan coast, roughly an hour from Bilbao. The coast was immediately beautiful, reminescent of nothing so much as Mendocino in California - dramatic rocky cliffs falling into the ocean, surrounded by lush pine forest. It was a drop-dead gorgeous Saturday afternoon and hordes of vacationing Basques were hanging out on the beaches and pulling beat-up surfboards out of their cars. They were also smoking weed. (Some joke that the Spanish government supplies the Basques with copious amounts of marijuana to keep them from revolting. Who knows.) We rolled up the coast for a while and found ourselves at our destination.





We were booked into the Princess Aisia Lekeitio, one of the nicer hotels in town with a lovely view of the waterfront. The hotel itself was the base definition of faded glory: it probably would have been a real showpiece roughly 30 years ago, but now smells vaguely of moth. The design scheme focuses on the poor princess the hotel was named after, a minor Spanish noble who was parked here with her children in lieu of anything better to do with her - some distressingly dead-eyed mannequins stood in the hallway. Still, the blue and white color scheme of the hotel was appealing, our room was large and clean, and the staff were friendly indeed - especially when we learned how to say thank you in Basque. It's Eskerrik asko, in case you were wondering.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon hanging out on the balcony. I went for a little stroll around town, taking in the village - it's just about the perfect little Basque fishing village, with a colorful shoreline composed of old fisherman's houses and fish markets, and a twisty, turny, and very vertical interior. Lekeitio is a popular Basque vacation spot but does not seem to host too many tourists from elsewhere - though of course the first people we met at the hotel were American. The little bay the village sits on boasts a beautiful cypress-lined island (with a land bridge that is exposed when the tide goes out), a well kept up beach, and insanely cold water. The water's sub-arctic temperatures didn't seem to deter the hordes of daytrippers, however, who splashed around in the shallows, played with their kids, and sunbathed topless with obvious pleasure. They were probably all high.

We decided to eat at our hotel's restaurant, which was supposed to be quite good, and had a big dining room with a view of the water. Our waiter resembled nothing more then a brusque, if friendly, Basque Hank Azaria. We all decided to go for the set menu.



My mom and I had some simple sauteed mushrooms for our first course. Pretty good, if unremarkable: if you put a mushroom in front of me, I'm going to eat it unless it is poisonous, and even then I probably won't stop to check. I should probably avoid foraging in forests.



My dad had white asparagus with crabmeat. The Spanish love canned white asparagus, are crazy for the stuff, but I've never liked it. It reminds me of what normal healthy asparagus turn into when they are undead. Dad thought it was fine. Apparently he enjoys consuming zombie vegetables.



My dad and I both had the sea bream, which was really quite good - as expected for a Basque fishing town. This was sauteed in quite a bit of butter, a simple and always successful preparation. The flavor of the fish was flaky, tender, and mild, reminding me somewhat of a Biscayan sand dab (one of Northern California's finest aquatic treats). Very tasty.



My mom had what I believe was a kind of sole. The flavor and preparation were about the same as we had - in other words, good - although mom did not enjoy negotiating the bones. I happily relieved her of the fish head. Insofar as I can tell, the Basque have the same delightfully freewheeling attitude towards seafood consumption as the Chinese do. In simpler terms: eating fish heads is awwright.

We headed off to bed to the sound of the ocean - not something I've done in a few years. A good day.