la navarrica: Dad´s Trip to Spain: Pais Vasco

I´m finally getting around to updating this blog after a whirlwind couple weeks- finishing the school year and saying goodbye to my students and coworkers, moving to a new apartment, and taking a two week tour of Spain with my dad and my sister! After a weekend in Sevilla, the two of them flew up north to Bilbao where I met them. From there we continued through Pais Vasco and Navarra, finishing up with Barcelona and Madrid. Here´s part 1 of the trip: visiting three of the most important towns/cities in País Vasco: Guernica, Bilbao, and San Sebastian.

Our first full day in Pais Vasco, we took a day trip to Guernica, a small town about a half hour outside of Bilbao. Guernica is famous for two reasons. Firstly, Guernica has been for hundreds if not thousands of years the symbolic centre of Pais Vasco. For over a thousand years, the inhabitants of Guernica and Bizkaia (the province) have gathered under the oak tree (a descendent of which still stands outside the Guernica Assembly Hall). Even after Bizkaia was taken over by neighboring kingdoms (Navarra, Castilla, eventually becoming part of Spain), the invading kings respected the existing laws and government of Guernica, called fueros. The Kings of Spain even pay a visit to Guernica after being coronated to swear their loyalty to the fueros of Bizkaia.

Posing with Guernica´s famous oak tree

Of course, Guernica became internationally infamous for , in stark contrast with the optimistic story of enduring democracy and regional pride is of course the bombings in 1937 (if you're not familiar with them, a quick Google search). The Peace Museum in Guernica is one of the best museums I have ever visited, offering both the details of what happened in that particular town, as well as a universal perspective on what peace is and a powerful exhibit on how violence creates violence, looking at the continuing violence in Pais Vasco and Spain due to groups like ETA, born partly in response to the events in Guernica and the Spanish Civil War. The museum is beautifully organized, each room really packs an emotional punch: a replica of a Basque house with a Basque woman narrating the events of the day, designed with a mirror along one wall, so that you become a part of the scene, and after the bombing noises finally recede, the mirror is illuminated to expose the rubble and wreckage of the house on the other side of a piece of glass; another room, explaining the history both of the Spanish Civil War and the events in Guernica, has a glass floor with rubble and household objects underneath.

A replica of Picasso's Guernica, the original can be found in Madrid.

We also had one of our best meals of the trip (and that's saying something!) in Guernica. An incredible local red wine, melon with jamón, and delicious beef and mushroom kebabs with a garlic sauce.

One of the only buildings in Guernica that survived the bombing, the Church of Santa María

The rest of our time in Pais Vasco was a little more upbeat! We spent an afternoon strolling around Bilbao and seeing the sights (bridges, bridges, more bridges, the Guggenheim museum, and Puppy the flower dog) and eating lots and lots of pintxos.

Puppy and the Guggenheim.

One of many pintxo bars we visited.

My favorite of the night: grilled mushrooms at Bar Motrikes.

Salpicón de marisco, a little seafood salad.

It was a similar routine in San Sebastian, a walk along the beach, taking the train up to the top of Monte Igeldo for the incredible views, and then pintxos pintxos and more pintxos (have I mentioned I LOVE Pais Vasco)!