Spectacular scenery! My first impression of the Basque region! Mountains, forests, beaches and river valleys. Really lovely. Stayed first few nights in a beach side town of Mundaka. Did some fairly challenging walks in the hills with steep climbs. Walked to historic Gernika one day. Gernika is well known for being bombed by Hitler during WWII on the instruction from Franco. The saturation bombs totally destroyed the town and killed 1600 civilians. Picasso created a famous painting to depict the atrocity. Interesting walk around the town. Had an excellent menu del dia which included a three course lunch and a bottle of wine for 12 euros each. Bit of a challenge ordering as no English spoken, only Spanish and Basque!! We opted for Spanish and a fairly stern Grandma spoke our options to us in Spanish, just know enough Spanish to make a good choice!
Left Mundaka to go to Saturraran. Visited the beautiful 'painted forest' in Oma. The painted forest is an artwork created by a local artist and consists of lots of trees painted in different patterns. It is really effective and definitely worth the hot walk to get there. Stayed on a beach side campsite in Saturraran and spent some time chilling on the beach.
Visited Lekeitio for a night. A lovely historic beach side town. Walked along harbour and seafront then watched the Lekeitio tourneo. The is a big festival and tournaments for the town lasting a few days. We couldn't suss out what was happening as the posters were in the Basque language and the tourist information was shut. We went to the town square in the evening for drinks and food and to see what happened. An entertaining series of strength competitions were held, including chopping three big logs with an axe, sawing a big log with a two man saw, lifting a large boulder onto the shoulder, a sack race, a race carrying two heavy weights and a tug of war! All enjoyed drinking a few glasses of the local wine.
Having a great time and the weather so far has been lovely and sunny between 23C-28C.
Love to all in the UK. Dawn and Mark xx
