Personal accounts of the lifestyle, farming traditions and local fiestas in the Basque Country villages of the Spanish Pyrenees.
The Basque language seems inscrutable! When you first look at Basque language it appears an unfathomable language full of X’s, Z’s and K’s – all those letters that you don’t want to be left with after a game of Scrabble! It is so totally different from any other language and where, in Europe, a drop of
I know, I know, I have written about the Ituren carnivals many times before (see links below) but the reaction is so raw, so overwhelming each single time we participate that I feel compelled to put it down. They are not my people, I am from a ‘middle-class’ Birmingham suburb with Accessorise and John Lewis down
Thirteen years ago our beautiful Basque Country farmhouse B & B in Ituren was nothing but a tiny mountain barn with a rustic outdoor toilet and a tiny brass tortoise on an outside tap! Once a haunt of sheep and wild ferrets (and a couple of grotesque toads that centered themselves up maliciously each night
As I dashed out of my neighbour’s farm Amatxi (the grandmother) waved to me from the door ‘Que trabajes mucho!’ she said; a translation from the Basque ‘lan haunditz egin’ meaning ‘I hope you have lots of work!’. She wasn’t being funny, nor making subtle remarks about my lazy ways, (I don’t think), she was
For some reason cider has become the theme of the week … and not a drop has yet passed my lips . .. I swear! My partner, the village lawyer, always seems to get interesting cases when the Basque cider houses open (usually between January and April) although I have to admit, the ‘wild-boar-in-the-boot-of-the-car’ case during last
