The Basque Coast of Spain

vineyards and mountains above San Sebastian

One of the prettiest towns along the northern coast of Spain is Santillana del Mar.  While it was once on the sea, those days are long past, but the town retains its charming character.  It is now a very attractive tourist town, filled when we were there with busloads of Spanish kids romping through the cobblestoned streets.

Romanesque church, Santillana del Mar

Santillana del Mar's huge Romanesque church is at the center of this medieval town.  There are Renaissance palaces aplenty, lots of cafes where you can sit outside and watch the people stream by and pretty vistas over the brilliant green countryside.  Sheep and dairy cattle are the principle livestock.

home in Santillana del Mar

An hour's visit is enough to see the town unless you want to poke around the shops.  I talked to one shopkeeper who told me that, given the still-terrible economy in Spain, it is better to own your own business.  He makes his money mostly in the summer months and doesn't earn a lot of money, but, he said, "enough to live a good life".  Kids go off to the university expecting to have good jobs waiting for them when they graduate, only to be disillusioned to discover that there aren't many jobs that use their skills and pay well. Spain's average unemployment is over 20%, and worse in the south, though better in the far north.

Gitaria beyond vineyards

Farther along the northern coast, past Bilbao, is the former Basque fishing village of Lekeitio, now a summer resort, with lots of apartment buildings for the many Spanish families who want to spend part of the summer at the beach.

Gitaria, near San Sebastian, is still a fishing village, with an interesting Romanesque church whose floor slopes up towards the altar.  That's because when the town decided to enlarge the original small church, they needed to expand it over the main road leading from the port to the center of town.  So, they built a tunnel under the church nave for the road, requiring them to lift the altar, and thus the floor, above the tunnel, sloping it from the original church to the new altar.

Elkano vineyard owner with bottling machine

Above San Sebastian is the thriving txacoli wine industry, covering the mountainsides with vineyards and small wineries.  We visited the Elkano vineyard and winery to meet its owner and hear about txacoli winemaking.  This is a green wine, fermented for 21 days to 3 months and bottled directly from stainless steel tanks at the time the wine is sold.  It is a tiny bit spritzy and very fresh-tasting. Some of it is exported, but most is sold locally, particularly to the many small bars where locals and visitors flock at night to socialize and eat pintxos (more on those later) while drinking local wines.

Elkano is a very important name in the Basque Country.  Elkano was from Gitaria (as was Balenciaga) and one of Magellan's sailors. While we all think of Magellan as the first person to circumnavigate the globe, Basques credit Elkano with that accomplishment and are very proud of him.  They are correct, since Magellan died on the voyage and Elkano, along with 18 other sailors, completed the entire voyage.

upended rock slabs above beach

fishermen's church

Near Gitaria is a beautiful series of beaches and coves where the slabs of rock stand on end. The waves are big, breaking well (according to a surfer among us) and loaded with surfers.  At the top of the cliff is an old fishermen's church famous for being in a film about Basque people.

rock slabs form cliffs along coast