It´s another bright, sunny, clear day here in the Basque Country. It was a bit warmer today (around 75) but most of today´s walk was through the forest. I´d say the first three hours were walking straight up a mountain. It was difficult but I got an early start--around 7 a.m. so it wasn´t too warm yet. Kepa (I have learned this is the Basque translation of Pedro aka Peter) walked with me part of the day which was good as it was nice to have someone to follow to try to keep up my pace. Today is the first day that we are away from the sea but we are in a very nice old village and the walk through the mountains was lovely. The last hour was walking down a very, very steep hill of broken up rock. I am only glad that it wasn´t raining as it would have been quite dnagerous otherwise. We arrived early at around 1 p.m. and bought some groceries and had sandwiches in the park while waiting for the albergue to open. The French guy who we met who had been here the day before told us that the guy who runs the albergue would try to convince us to go to a restaurant and would show us the way. ´We don´t know if this guy has a cut in the business of the restaurant or not but sure enough within seconds of arriving he was walking us to the restaurant. We did not eat there as the French guy assured us that it wasnt´very good. It is about 6 p.m. and the rest of the crowd has trickled in. Marie and Patric arrived on their bikes and planned to stay but the aforementioned restaurant man talked them into continuing on 6 or 7 kilometeres to the next village to stay at the monestary with the monks. He said it was a very beautiful and special place and since they were on bikes it wouldn´t take them long. I am a bit envious as I had also heard that it was a nice place but it was hot and I didn´t have the energy to carry on. I will visit tomorrow but won´t get to partake of the dinner, etc. The church in this town is quite interesting as it is built around these 3 huge monoliths that take up the center of the church. There isn´t much along the lines of written explanation about it but I guess I could ask Mr. Lilloman at the albergue or maybe the librarian here at the library as she is quite helpful and friendly.
Tomorrow it is off to Guernika. You may know this village from Picasso´s painting. IT is really a sad story as Hitler wanted to test out some bombs so his good friend, Franco, the Spanish dictator, told him to go ahead and bomb the small Basque village of Guernika. Some of the old part of the town remains but much of it is new.
Nothing really funny to report on today´s adventure. We saw some beautiful horses and lots of cows, sheep, chickens, etc.
Hope all are well. Hello to Nutmeg (cat and human).
1 comment:
Somehow it had never occurred to me that one could actually visit Guernica. That painting is one of the most powerful things I've ever seen in my life. I will be so interested to hear about the town now.
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