“And it harm ye none, do what thou wilt” Healing and superstition have played an important role in the lives of the Basque people – and the witch hunts of the Spanish inquisition in the 17th century are perhaps the most dramatic example. Many women in these misty Basque mountain villages, with their strange attire
The Telephone Call Our self-guided walks in the Pyrenees were pitchforked into action after a phone call from a Houston lawyer around Christmas 2012. Steve was heading to the Basque Country with a group of lawyer friends and wanted me to design 6 days of self-guided walks in the Pyrenees to lead them over the
One of the striking things I have learned in this Basque farming hamlet of Ameztia, is just how much of daily life is affected by the moods of the weather and the cycles of the sun and moon. Amatxi, (our adopted grandmother of 83), always says that the full moon heralds a change in the weather. Yesterday there was
One of our most spectacular walks is to the protected area of Las Peñas de Itxusi where we walk along the clifftops of the most northern, ‘natural’, Griffon Vulture breeding grounds in Europe. Itxusi is the Basque word for ‘ugly’, a name given to the area by the shepherds who dreaded loosing a sheep to