Just across the river from the Casco Viejo - between the river and the railway - are the areas known as Bilbao la Vieja and San Francisco, a vibrant but poor district where many immigrants live. It’s quite a bohemian quarter, too, like parts of the Casco Viejo, attracting students, artists, gay people, clubbers, and so on. The city council has been working to improve the area, and a variety of interesting restaurants, cultural venues, etc., have opened here.

The majority of immigrants here are North and West African Muslims, many from Morocco and Senegal, and this is a great place for buying a variety of African spices, grains, and fruit, herbs and vegetables.

Many of the South American immigrants in Bilbao live here too. If you want to get away from the Basque food and culture that almost entirely dominate the rest of the city, this is the place to come.

There’s also a less salubrious side to life in San Francisco. Although Spain’s and Bilbao’s crime rates are relatively low, like all big cities Bilbao has its dark side, with poverty, drugs and prostitution – and San Francisco is home to the red light district, where prostitution (mainly South American women) is visible and drugs raids common.

Mass immigration is relatively new to Spain, and of course it produces the usual problems of integration, xenophobia, etc. that are common to most societies. According to Wikipedia, in 2009 there were ‘127 different nationalities registered in Bilbao, although 60 of them contain fewer than 10 people.’ The largest community by far is the South American (mainly from Bolivia, Colombia, Paraguay, Brazil and Ecuador). They are followed by smaller numbers of Romanians, Moroccans and Chinese. Recent years have also seen an influx of West Africans.

Spanish-speaking South American immigrants are relatively well integrated, and many, for instance, are greengrocers around the city. The small numbers of Chinese immigrants in Bilbao are extremely industrious and set up cavernous shops, known as ‘tiendas chinas’, which sell absolutely everything at incredibly cheap prices, and incredibly low quality. The North Africans from Morocco and around have old links with Spain, and seem relatively settled in San Francisco.

The more recent West African immigrants, however, who have mostly arrived in the last few years, seem far less integrated, and they can often be seen laying out stalls on pavements selling goods such as DVDs and cheap jewellery, or peddling them in cafes and bars, as well as gathering in groups in the streets.

Amongst the West Africans are a couple of very good Kora players: the Kora is a West African stringed instrument which makes a beautiful sound. Hearing them play on the streets has been one of the great pleasures of living in the Casco Viejo this year.

Some might say that immigration is particularly alien to the Basque country, a place which has been pretty undilutedly Basque for thousands of years: the Moors never conquered it, the Jews never made it here, even the Romans and the Visigoths never properly got a foothold. But modern Bilbao is an increasingly multicultural city, and immigrants have also reached some of the lesser cities and larger towns around the Basque country – places like Bermeo, Amorebieta, and so on.

I don’t think immigration seems more problematic here than anywhere else, and modern progressive Basque nationalism seems to be doing a good job of fostering a multicultural society, despite the historic monoculturalism (and at times xenophobic nationalism) of the region and its own battle to revive the language, culture and politics of the Basque people and have them recognised within Spain.

Storks (see previous post) were the highlight of our trip to Burgos, but there was plenty more of interest in this very beautiful city.

This was our only trip into Castile, the central region of Spain which was the heartland of the Spanish kingdom for hundreds of years. Burgos – the medieval capital of Castile – with its grand medieval heritage (magnificent cathedral, royal monasteries, enormous castle and so on), its open landscapes, and its lack of industrial hinterland – felt quite different from the grittier, less fancy, mountainous Basque Country, despite being only a few miles south of it. On the other hand, like many cathedral cities, it also felt very much as though it had had its age of splendour and was living off past glories.

The fantastic cathedral – the first great Gothic cathedral of Spain, built in imitation of the French cathedrals – dominates the city…

… with its monumental front…

… its elegant late medieval spires…

… its ornate Renaissance tower…

…and its fortress-like cloisters:

It’s surrounded by handsome squares …

… and overlooked by the castle hill, from which great views can be had:

Inside, the Renaissance tower, with its glazed star-shaped ceiling, is stunning:

Other treasures include an amazing medieval Tree of Jesse...

… and a wealth of fine carving:

The rest of the town is full of picturesque squares and streets ….

… some of them now notably in need of a lick of paint:

The medieval Casa del Cordón is the grandest house in town, where the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella (they of the Inquisition), once held an audience with Christopher Columbus:

Like similar buildings we saw in Vitoria and Pamplona, it has been beautifully modernised inside, now housing a bank and an art gallery:

There´s not much left of the castle, high up on the hill above the town, but it was clearly a massive structure commanding extensive views of the open countryside around:

There are extensive remains of medieval gates, walls and churches around the town…

… including the great gate leading from the river into the cathedral square:

… and the church of St Nicolas with its extraordinary altarpiece:

The tree-lined river threads its way through town…

… with a fine esplanade on the cathedral side:

Burgos is a major centre on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route, and we saw lots of pilgrims with sticks, rucksacks and scallops. Oddly most of them seemed to be American.

A half-hour´s stroll out of town along the pilgrimage route, and along the river, is a royal medieval complex which includes the Hospital del Rey (now part of the University of Burgos)…

… and the Monasterio de las Huelgas, founded by Alfonso VIII of Castile and his wife Eleanor of England (daughter of Richard II) in 1187 to house their tombs:

Henry II (of England) and Eleanor of Aquitaine were married here in 1254 too. The Gothic chapel doubles as the Spanish royal mausoleum of the 12th and 13th centuries, and there is a fine Romanesque cloister, but alas the very famous medieval music manuscript, the Las Huelgas Codex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Las_Huelgas), was not on display.

In recent years, Burgos has attempted, with moderate success, to re-invent itself a la Guggenheim, by opening the rather wonderful Museum of Human Evolution, in response to the extraordinary early human archaeological finds at nearby Atapuerca. I’ll write about this further in a separate post, but meanwhile here is the museum complex…

… which includes the conference centre where Pietro was attending a Virology conference:

Note the wonderful ideographic representation of the evolving human which serves as the logo for the complex:

Outside the museum is a mesmerising fountain…

… and nearby is a monument to the great historical figure of Burgos’s past, El Cid, who it turns out didn’t have much to do with Burgos apart from having been born there, and wasn’t quite the Christian hero he was supposed to have been. But hey…

We almost, but not quite, failed to go to the modest but lovely Museum of Burgos:

We’re very glad indeed that we went, however, if only because of this spectacularly wonderful enamelled Romanesque panel, one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen all year:

Finally, a word about the speciality sweet of Burgos, the ‘yema’:

If you like pure raw egg yolks and sugar, you’ll enjoy it. Otherwise, you might find them slightly disgusting. So do as I did, and take them home and make marzipan out of them…

As Euskadi’s major metropolis, Bilbao has inevitably been at the heart of the Basque conflict and the activities of extreme left nationalist group ETA - Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (which means Basque Homeland (Euskadi) and Freedom (Askatasuna)). It’s hard to imagine that the city we’ve come to love so much was until recently the scene of such terrible atrocities.

As Euskadi’s major metropolis, Bilbao has inevitably been at the heart of the Basque conflict and the activities of extreme left nationalist group ETA - Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (which means Basque Homeland (Euskadi) and Freedom (Askatasuna)). It’s hard to imagine that the city we’ve come to love so much was until recently the scene of such terrible atrocities.

Two years ago ETA announced a permanent end to its armed struggle, and there is no sense of any violent conflict here now – though there are many large political demonstrations. As yet, however, there have been no moves towards decommissioning of arms, as there was in Northern Ireland, and relationships between the Basque  ‘abertzale’ (nationalist) left and the Spanish government are nowhere near as positive as they were in Ireland between Sinn Fein, Ireland and the Blair government.

In part, this is because of the reactionary intransigence of the Spanish hard-line right wing government (although to be fair the left-wing government that preceded it was not much better in this respect). However, it’s also in part because ETA is in a far weaker position than Sinn Fein was, since the Basque Country already has pretty much everything that Northern Ireland achieved through its peace process – i.e. a very substantially devolved regional government giving the region a great deal of democratic autonomy. In fact, the Basque Country has more autonomy, since it (alone amongst the Spanish autonomous regions) has fiscal autonomy too.

There’s also a fair amount of scepticism about how permanent the ceasefire is, since ETA has announced permanent ceasefires before and they have not lasted (though this has lasted longer than others and seems more stable). A few weeks ago, ETA released a statement denouncing the lack of progress that has been made in negotiations with Spain following its ceasefire. This certainly reads as a genuine cry of frustration, but there’s no doubt that it has vaguely threatening overtones too.

Whatever one might feel about ETA, it does seem as though the Spanish government is not responding as open-mindedly as it might to ETA’s overtures – and that it has barely set a foot right in the Basque conflict since the end of the Franco regime nearly 40 years ago.

At the heart of the current conflict is the question of the Basque prisoners – a huge issue that has very substantial support across the Basque Country. Hundreds of people imprisoned because of their involvement in ETA are held in prisons in France and Spain, deliberately many hundreds of miles from the Basque Country, meaning that families have to travel long distances to visit them. The authorities, of course, want to keep the prisoners well away from local networks. Now that ETA has announced its ceasefire, there is huge public support for the campaign to bring them ‘back home’ (‘etxera’) to local prisons.

Flags hang from windows all over the Basque Country in protest at the situation, demanding that the prisoners return ‘etxera’ – and ‘etxera’ is the chant you hear at all manner of political and cultural events.

The government refuses point blank to return the prisoners. Not only that, the situation has been inflamed by moves to keep many of the prisoners incarcerated for longer periods by means of the ‘Parot Doctrine’, which means that remission for work done in prison is deducted from their total sentence rather than from the shorter maximum period (30 years) they will actually spend in jail. The European Court of Human Rights decreed last year that this was illegal, and Spain is currently challenging that ruling, but it seems fairly clear that Spain’s actions here are unjust, almost certainly illegal, and certainly counter-productive.

There have been many massive demonstrations about this over the last few years, including three in Bilbao since we have been here (one happening today) – and many others throughout the Basque Country. This picture of the last major demonstration in Bilbao, in January, gives an indication of how massive it was:

This video (at http://www.eitb.com/es/videos/detalle/1224506/video-manifestacion-u12--multitudinaria-manifestacion-bilbao) also shows how huge the demonstration in January was, as well as being an interesting insight into the popular nationalist appeal of the cause:

And here's a nationalist video collage of the event  (www.youtube.com/watch?v=88qngm_qbjI) which gives a sense of how the issue about the prisoners stands as a symbol for Basque nationalism more generally:

What do the Basques actually feel about ETA, given that a substantial majority of the population consider themselves Basque nationalists of one kind or another?

First, it’s important to recognize that not all Basque nationalists are separatists: some are happy with autonomy rather than independence. Second, it’s important to recognize that most left-wing nationalists do not support the extreme-left terrorist tactics of ETA. Third, not all Basque nationalists are left-wing – far from it; the main nationalist party (PNV) is in fact centre-right, and Basque nationalism began in the 19th century as a xenophobic right-wing movement with a somewhat fascist philosophy (though it has moved a long way from that position in the last century.) Fourth, there has been a massive anti-ETA campaign amongst Basques of all political views.

It’s also very important, however, to recognize the widespread grievances that exist against Spain, many of which date back to the brutal suppression of the Basque Country during Franco’s time, pre-1976 – some aspects of which continued even after Franco’s death. The Spanish army and police attacked the Basques violently in the transitional period after Franco’s death, and even today are felt by many to be a potential threat. Furthermore, there have been and continue to be many reports of torture and maltreatment of Basque prisoners and suspects by the Spanish state, which have fed these grievances; the Spanish government’s banning of pro-independence left-wing parties (especially the popular Batasuna) which are suspected of being in sympathy with ETA has certainly not helped things and is again widely perceived as a breach of democratic rights.

Although there is little direct support for ETA, there is a great deal of support for many of ETA’s aims, and ETA is in some senses deeply embedded in the community throughout Euskadi: there is no ‘other side´ in the Basque country as there is in Northern Ireland, where the fight is between catholic and protestant extremists. Many Basque people will no doubt know or be related to someone who has been involved with ETA in some way, or will be involved socially and politically around the edges of the extreme left – drinking and socializing in the gritty working class nationalist bars called ‘Herriko Tabernas’ (‘Homeland Bars’) that are found all over the Basque Country – even if they actually have nothing to do with ETA.

And whatever one feels about nationalism, one has to recognise that nationalist sentiment of all kinds is VERY powerful and widespread here for all kinds of reasons. The strength of communal feeling for Basque identity and culture is palpable throughout Euskadi, and often very moving (I've written about this in previous posts). And socially progressive, left-wing nationalism is particularly powerful here because of the way the Basques, the gritty Northerners, have been oppressed by right-wing Madrid establishments over the last century and more. You can see here of course echoes of the relationship between England and N. Ireland, and between England and Scotland, and between London and the industrial north of England – but the Basque cause is distinguished by its severe oppression by fascism during the Franco years.

Everything has to be understood against a background of unresolved tensions following the Spanish Civil War and the long rule of the Franco regime. Many in Spain feel that the fascists who thrived under Franco have never had to pay the price for their crimes, nor has there ever been any truth or conciliation process. Many of the fascists continued, and still continue, to hold positions within the Spanish government and military. (See Giles Tremlett’s excellent book ‘The Ghosts of Spain’ for much more on this.)

So, whether people actually support ETA’s terrorist actions or not (and most of course DON’T), there is still widespread support for bringing the prisoners back home, and a widespread sense of more general grievance against Spain, especially given the current right-wing regime.

And there is one other issue that has the potential to unite the different shades of Basque nationalism against the Spanish: the question of self-determination. Whether they believe that the Basque Country should be independent or not, whether they are left or right wing nationalists, many people believe that the Basques should at least be given the choice via a referendum, something the Spanish government refuses to allow, saying that it is against the Spanish Constitution – a constitution that the majority of Basques do not consider themselves to have ratified, since most abstained or voted against it in the 1978 referendum on it.  Only 35% of the electorate in the Basque Country supported the new constitution.

Why did the majority of Basques reject (or abstain in the vote on) the constitution when it offered them the substantial autonomy that they now have? Right-wingers, as I understand it, objected particularly to the proposal to make Navarra into a separate autonomous region rather than part of a united Basque region (see previous post on Pamplona for further detail on this). Left-wingers objected for a wide variety of reasons. Aiartza and Zabalo (2010) report that there were five main unresolved issues:

·      Amnesty for Basque prisoners (still unresolved)

·      Legalisation of pro-independence parties (still unresolved)

·      Withdrawal of Spanish police force (* There has since 1982 been an autonomous Basque police force, the Ertzaintza, but it is widely regarded by the left as a puppet of the Spanish state).

·      Acceptance of the right to self-determination, including Navarra as part of a Basque state (still unresolved)

·      Improvement of working class conditions in the Basque Country

but of course their political objections were far broader than this list indicates.

So where does this leave us? With limited access to the locals, we haven’t been able to have many in-depth discussions with them about these issues, but what we see around us is a region in which the Basques have a very large amount of autonomy, and freedom to express their culture, language, politics and identity, in a way similar to Wales and Scotland – and in some ways even more so, since they also have considerable fiscal independence (such as tax-gathering powers). We see what appears in many ways to be a well-balanced society in which nationalism is, at least in urban multicultural areas, inclusive and progressive. Many people we’ve spoken to are happy with this situation, and suspicious of more fundamentalist nationalism.

We are also strongly aware, however, of the very real grievances many of the Basques have against a Spanish state that still behaves reprehensibly, the pain of recent Basque history, and the powerful cultural, linguistic and historical arguments for an independent Basque state – more powerful in many ways than any of the British nations (or, at risk of being controversial, even than Catalunya).

It’s a complex state of affairs, and all we can do is keep trying to understand it. I’ve been reading a fair amount of general stuff on Basque history and culture, and in an effort to try to understand what we see around us, I’ve read the following academic reports on the Basque Conflict:

The Basque Country: the Long Walk to a Democratic Scenario by Urko Aiartza and Julen Zabalo (Berghof Conflict Research, Transitions Series No 7, Berlin 2010)

Keys to Understanding the ETA’s Permanent Ceasefire by Sandra Chapman (Lokarri, Bilbao 2012)

Basque Country Conflict Map (University of St Andrews, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies 2010)

We’ve also watched a couple of really interesting films about it, both thoroughly recommended. La Pelota Vasca is a documentary which simply presents voices from all sides, taking the metaphor of the Basque game Pelota as a symbol of the conflict. It’s ten years old, now, so it is a bit out of date, but it nevertheless gives a very good overview of the situation. Gazta Zati Bat is a more recent (and more entertaining) film which focuses on the question of self-determination rather than the question of independence, and follows a grass-roots political movement in Euskadi which initiates a cultural and political exchange between Scottish and Basque nationalists – cue lots of amusing film of Scottish and Basque country sports, folk music and dancing, etc., as well as explorations of the shared politics of independence referenda….

I’ve written a fair bit about our experience of the Basque language (Euskara), and its political and cultural significance in the Basque Country. But we’ve also encountered two other interesting minority languages this year.

First was Catalan in Barcelona. Of course we knew in advance about Catalan. But it still took us by surprise when we saw it actually written down. ‘Look,’ said Pietro. ‘It’s just like Italian.’ ‘Look,’ said Gary. ‘It’s just like French’. And indeed it was just like both, with a bit of Spanish thrown in. And much easier to understand than Spanish.

Here are some of the things we loved about Catalan:

• Brilliantly short nouns, e.g. pa = pan (bread), vi = vin (wine), mon = mondo (world), Pau = Paulo, pi = pino (pine), antic = antico (old)
  
• Words ending in 'iu', e.g. distintiu = distintivo, palau = palacio, museu, etc.
  
• Words ending in 'atges', e.g. homatges, usatges  (cf French 'ages')
  
• Words ending in 'ys', e.g. anys = anos, banys = banos

The second minority language experience took us by surprise. In Bayonne, in the Pays Basque, we discovered that the road signs were in not just the two languages we expected – Basque and French – but also in a third, Gascon. ‘Look,’ said Gary and Pietro. ‘It’s just like Catalan’. And indeed it was.

(NB: the word ‘Gascon’ is a variant of the word ‘Vasco’ or ‘Basque’… but Gascon is nevertheless a variant of French, not of Basque.)

There  was one week (when we took the train from Bilbao to Barcelona and then on to Geneva and Basel) when we had to deal with Spanish, Catalan, Basque, French and German all in one week... That was Language Overload.

Finally: Spanish. I eventually – almost at the end of our stay! – went on an intensive beginners’ course in Spanish (20 hours), at the ‘Instituto Ernest Hemingway’, just a few minutes’ walk from our flat.  There were just two of us in the class, which was great, and gave us lots of opportunity to speak, making hundreds of mistakes in a safe environment. The good news is that we went so fast that the teacher kept running out of material. This is probably because both of us had had some prior experience of Spanish (even if for me it was just having listened to it and been around it for almost a year), and of French and Italian and Latin too. The bad news is that 20 hours of beginners Spanish doesn’t make you a competent speaker or listener by a long chalk…

Still, at least I now have another language under my belt to be incompetent in.

The Basque Country is effectively the foothills of the Pyrenees. It’s extremely hilly – densely so – and indeed quite mountainous in parts.

Unfortunately I suffer badly from vertigo and/or have a ridiculous phobia about heights  (depending on which way you look at it) which often manifests itself on exposed hillsides, even not particularly steep ones. It’s a form of agoraphobia, if you like, which affects all my balance mechanisms when a certain combination of open space and height kicks in. It doesn´t particularly bother me when I’m surrounded by trees or buildings, but as soon as they disappear I go a bit funny.

So my appreciation of the Basque hills has been somewhat limited this year.  I’ve enjoyed looking at them from a distance, and taking trains through them: I like a nice hill as much as the next man. And many of the Basque hills are very satisfyingly green, forested and alpine. But I haven’t ventured up many of them. Which is a shame, as by all accounts they are extremely good to venture up, and provide some excellent views.

Bilbao itself is entirely surrounded by substantial hills, the reason it is sometimes called ‘El Botxo’ (‘The Hole’). Directly above the Casco Viejo is Mount Artxanda, served by a funicular, whilst on the other side of the river is Mount Pagasarri, which many Bilbainos walk up at weekends. Wherever you are in Bilbao, you can see the green (or white in winter) of the surrounding hills.

From the Casco Viejo, there are a number of quite dramatic staircases and lifts which one can take up the lower slopes of Artxanda to the Begoña district, from where one can get some intermediate views of the centre of Bilbao. These are the Mallona steps….

…. which lead to Etxebarri Park, from which one can see the river and the Guggenheim threading through the centre of town:

Round the corner, are the Solokoetxe steps…

… which afford great views of the Casco Viejo, with the cathedral spire rising above it:

To get to the top of Artxanda, there is a funicular from the centre of town. I have reluctantly done this two or three times in order to see the great views from up there:

There’s also a good monument to the victims of the Spanish Civil War:

Venturing out of Bilbao, there are many terrifying cliffs by the coast, which I have mentioned in previous posts. I was persuaded one day to walk to the top of the highest cliff on the Bizkaia coast (up the hill behind the cliff, I hasten to add, rather than up the cliff itself). There was a spectacular view, which I admired well away from the edge:

Inland, there are the mountains of the beautiful Basque Highlands, to which we’ve made a couple of trips. Once, we even got to the top of the relatively easy Mount Saibigain, in the Gorbeia Natural Park, (or at least Pietro did: I chickened out of the last little bit) which gave us a nice view of some snow-covered peaks:

We also got views of the nearby Mount Amboto, famed in Basque mythology as the home of the goddess Mari:

There are many more great excursions to be made into the highlands. I’m sad, for instance, that we didn´t have time for a trip to the Gipuzkoa side of the mountains, to see the towns of Tolosa (where the beans come from) and Idiazabal (where the cheese comes from), and so on.

Even though I would have probably have been petrified.