Being part of Europe, the Basque Country naturally has flora and fauna similar to other parts of Europe. For example, as far as I can tell, there are no species of frogs unique to the Basque Country. However, just like the people themselves, the ruggedness and relative isolation of the mountainous region (along with some […]
Historically, the Basque Country’s economy has focused on agrarian and industrial activities, the later mostly centered on steel and shipbuilding. However, the government of Euskadi — or the Basque Autonomous Community comprised of Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Araba — has invested heavily on modernization, with significant expenditures on research and development, particularly by business — of […]
Bermeo, a town of about 17,000 on the Bizkaia coast, was founded between 1234 and 1239 by Lope Diaz de Haro. Bermeo was the capital of Bizkaia between 1476 and 1602, at which time Bilbao was made the capital of the province.
Inspired by this article in The Atlantic, where they showed parts of the world in chunks of seven square miles, I scoured Google Earth for images of the Basque Country from 10,000 feet (a few are from a bit higher), to show some of the natural and human diversity of the Basque Country. I’m sure […]
Our daughter is growing up fast and it was time to upgrade her bike. We stopped at the local bike shop (Sirius Cycles, owned by this great guy from Panama who is one of the few people I have met that has known a Blas…) They are a small shop, but with a lot of […]
Last week, while visiting the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, for a kick-off meeting for a new project, we visited the Department of Nuclear Engineering. Nuclear Engineering is housed in Etcheverry Hall, clearly named after a Basque. It turns out that Bernard A. Etcheverry was a professor of irrigation and drainage during 1915-1951. […]
Relatively, as compared to the other peoples of Europe, the Basques converted to Christianity rather late. While Christianity seems to arrived in the region in the 4th or 5th centuries, it didn’t really take hold amongst the population until roughly the 12th or 13th centuries (Wikipedia has a summary of what is known and debated […]
The big news out of the Basque Country is that ETA, Euskadi ta Askatasuna, who had declared a ceasefire in 2011, has officially disarmed. ETA grew out of the resistance to Franco’s dictatorship and disaffection with the economic and political realities of the late 1950s. They changed the political course of Spain when they assassinated Luis […]
Those of us that are the sons and daughters of Basque immigrants that came in the early or middle 1900s often have a somewhat romantic and, maybe, antiquated view of the Basque Country. While traditional pursuits such as folk dance are still very prevalent in the Basque Country, they aren’t as pervasive as a typical […]
Basques have had their impact on world history and there are key historical figures that most Basques already know. St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuit order, was born in Loyola. The first person to (deliberately) circumnavigate the Earth, Juan Sebastian Elcano, was from Getaria. However, there are many other Basques that have made important […]
