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What the Basque Country has to offer

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ATAURI ART

Times are tight and if you’re waiting for a handout to launch your next big project you’d better not hold your breath.  Better to just get on with it and do it anyway.  That seems to be the spirit that lies behind Atauri Art. This event, organised by Bapatean Zirko who are based in Atauri,  […]

What’s for dinner?

Those Bizipozatourists who have passed through Leorza this summer have little choice but to get involved in life here. That it would seem, is part of the charm. We manage an organic garden and the very least that you will be expected to do is water it. Watering the garden on a warm summers evening […]

Mining Adventure

A curious feature in these parts is the presence of “asphalt mines”. We’re all fairly familiar with the idea of oil and gas wells but there are all manner of hydrocarbons under the earth ranging from light gasses such as methane, through heavier oils to the extremely heavy and sticky tars and asphalts. You may […]

Basque Rural Sports “Herri Kirolak”

The Montaña Alavesa is a mountainous and sparsely populated region in the southern reaches of Alava.  It is home to a couple of thousand people scattered around the numerous little villages.  These villages have changed little in the last few hundred years and you might think that not much happens in these parts.  But where […]

The Alboka

In the small, sleepy, Alaves village of Otazu you can occasionally hear the curiously mournful sound of the Alboka.  The Alboka is a uniquely Basque instrument which sounds a little like a sharper version of the Scottish pipes. In the shade of some chestnut trees you can find Osses’s Alboka workshop.  Osses has dedicated the […]

Ondartxo Center of Maritime Culture

In this three minute video our intention was to illustrate the picturesque sea port of Pasaia and express something of the aims of Ondartxo Center of Maritime Culture,  The video was recorded spontaneously during a visit to Ondartxo and edited in what amounted to a days work. Ondartxo Center of Maritime Museum – Pasaia, Basque […]

Perfect day on Txindoki (1436m) Guipuzkoa

It’s for days like this that I keep going back to the hills. This month we’ve seen some pretty wild weather in Euskal Herria and in pursuit of a good day I’ve been out in it all. It has on occasion been uncomfortable. The writer Patricia Moyes said, “I simply cannot understand the passion that […]

Fiesta de los Momotxorros. Altsasua, Navarra

The fiesta of Los Momotxorros in Altsasua, Navarra, is one of the highlights of my year. This for me is real carnival.  A fiesta whose origins go back to Pagan times, it marks a turning point in the winter and the coming of Spring.  It’s a fiesta where our demons are paraded before us, named, […]

Frozen Dog

I had this notion to accept the fact that February is a slack month and to put it to good use climbing mountains, taking photos and recording it all for Bizipozatourists on this blog.  But, not only is it a slack month it’s also colder than a well diggers ass. I’m Scottish though and I’m […]

Frozen Man

Yesterday’s blizzard seems to have blown through to be replaced with freezing fog.  No excuse for not venturing out then.  A five minute drive took us to the picturesque medieval  walled-town of Antoñana which shelters under the prow of Soila (990m) Soila is an impressive mountain on a clear day.  Today it was shrouded in […]