Trevor Huxham

On my return journey from France back into Spain, I stopped off for a few days in the Basque provinces in north-central Spain. In the short time I had to spend there, I fell in love with the coastal city of San Sebastián and decided to make a day-trip to nearby Bilbao, one hour to the west. Pronounced “beel-BAH-oe” [bil'βa.o], its name in the native Basque language is actually Bilbo —yes, spelled the same way as the protagonist from Tolkien’s  Hobbit . Riverfront apartments in Bilbao’s old town Nerd freak-out moment aside, Bilbao is a large city that stretches out between the hills and the Nervión River, a few kilometers inland from the coast. Although a lovely place to visit, its industrial, workaday heritage still shows through today. After all, Bilbao—along with the rest of the Basque Country—led the way in bringing the Industrial Revolution to Spain a couple hundred years ago. Blessed with large iron ore deposits and a strong population, the region quickly transformed...

Returning to Spain from a little over a week in northern France , I decided to pass through the Spanish Basque Country situated around the western corner of the Pyrenees mountains. This would complete the loop around France I wanted to make, having entered via Barcelona and the eastern Pyreness on the other side. Green, beach-blessed  San Sebastián was stop number one, just outside the French border on the Atlantic coast. It was love at first sight. San Sebastián, seen from Mount Urgull But who are the Basques? Before I got interested in Spain or Spanish history, I had never heard of this people group before, but, come to find out, they’ve been interacting with Europe and the world since before the time of the Romans. In short, the defining feature of the Basque people is that they speak, well, Basque— a language with no discernible link to any other European language that has resisted competition from Latin, French, and Spanish for thousands of years. The Basques str...