(I couldn’t resist the pun.) Some big news for the Basque Country’s biggest cities. First, Donostia has been chosen, along with Wroclaw, Poland, as one of the two European Capitals of Culture in 2016. EiTB has the news here. This means that for the year of 2016, Donostia will host events that highlight Europe’s cultural […]
In his blog, Ricardo Ibarra posted an infographic taken from El Correo that shows the breakdown of the last elections by region within the Basque Autonomous Community, an image shamelessly stolen from him and reposted here (click on the image for a bigger version). It is interesting to see how things break down. Gipuzkoa went […]
The Basque Country has changed dramatically since the time my father left for a new life in the United States. Not only politically, with the death of Franco, the activity of ETA, and the rise of the Basque Autonomous Community, but socially, as well, as the Basque people have taken their culture into the 21st […]
If you’ve never been to the Basque Country and are considering your first visit, you might have no idea of where to start your tour. Or if you’ve been several times to see family, you might want to break out of the routine of visiting the family baserria and find something new. Rick Steves, “America’s […]
A while back I found an awesome book that showed the coats-of-arms of most of the towns and villages of Bizkaia. Each town was given a different page, with a drawing of the escudo and some information about the town. I’d always hoped to find something similar for the other provinces, but was never able […]
I received this query way back in June (ugh! I’m so far behind). It describes the efforts of a group of historians and archeologists that are trying to document and save the historic castles of the Basque Country. If you have interest in their project, please leave a comment and I’ll make sure they see […]
A nice video on the Basques, touching on a number of aspects of Basque culture, including their maritime history, bertsolariak, txalaparta, and pilota.
At the time of its closing, in 2003, Egunkaria was the only daily newspaper published solely in Euskara. It had been in operation for 13 years. In 2003, however, Spanish authorities raided the offices of Egunkaria, confiscating computers and equipment, and arresting many of the leading figures of the newspaper. The charges were association with […]
A couple of links I’ve been sent or found in wanderings of the web. First, Louis Arriaga Jr has a fascinating story of misunderstandings and miscarriage of justice (even one of the sentencing judges felt this way, but couldn’t do anything about it). Clearly, Arriaga is of Basque descent, though his connections to Spain are […]
I was sent a link to this site, http://hendaye.over-blog.net/, which has a number of videos of the ocean and more in the Basque Country. It is in French, so I don’t understand much of what is written, but I thought people might enjoy it.
