We’ve spent another fantastic 10 days in the Basque Country, focussed on improving our surfing skills in Zarautz, taking advantage of the beginner friendly summer waves. Zarautz has the longest beach on the Basque Coast, filled with families, surf schools and gorgeous fabric beach huts. We attended another Surf Film Festival – this one featuring several films on surfing in the Basque Country, with Zarautz heavily featured; we had fun spotting local surfers on screen (and cheers of course went up in the cinema as people spotted themselves!).
- The famous beach huts made from awnings, Zarautz beach
- Leigh excited to be buying a longboard, Essus Surf, Zarautz
- The Zarautz Surf Film Festival at the old Cine Modelo
- Skateboarding on the promenade, Zarautz
We also spent days getting to know the rest of the wildly beautiful Basque coast. We visited the most northerly point in the region and the beautiful San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, a lovely island connected to the mainland by a bridge and many steps, housing a beautiful 10th century church. We enjoyed beautiful beaches at Lekeitio, Mundaka and Mutriku and were well looked after by locals at a great bar in Ibarranguelua.
- The Basque Coast
- Enjoying wonderful Basque hospitality, Ibarranguelua
- A typical Basque fishing village perched on a hillside
We explored inland, visiting Gernika-Lumo and getting lost in the misty green hills just inland from the coast. The Basque Country is a mix of rolling green hills, beautiful beaches, colourful fishing villages set on steep slopes, houses which would look more at home in Switzerland than Spain. We also spent a morning SUPing up one of the rivers and spent some wonderful evenings surfing as the sun set.
- Yet another amazing sunset
- A Basque festival in the streets of Zarautz
- The view over to San Juan de Gaztelugatxe
We journeyed in to France, to St-Jean-de-Luz and to ultra cool Biarritz but were certainly relieved that we had decided to stay in Spain as France was unbelievably busy. We weren’t actually able to stop in Biarritz as couldn’t find any parking: there were huge queues for every parking place, queues at petrol stations and general holiday chaos. We can’t even begin to imagine how crazy the south of France must be!
On that note, we decided to leave France until September and that a holiday from our sabbatical was in order. We booked tickets to fly out to South Africa, leaving Bambi in the care of the wonderful staff at Camping Gran Zarautz.
We had no idea how beautiful the Basque coast is – wonderful photos.
Love M and T.
Hello,
Nice to see your longboard Lucy, we missend the basque festival it’s a pitty.
Great to see the pictures from Leiketo, Mutriki and all the Nice places we visit last year. Have a good time, we also loved the basque country.
Have fun Paula and family X
So good to hear from you – and great to know that you enjoyed the rest of your holiday. The campsite got really busy again, but we miss you as neighbours! Good to hear that Lukas is enjoying his skateboard – I am loving mine and, though I’m sure not doing as well as Lukas is, even went down the busy promenade on the skate boards (just not down the hill yet!). I’m also really improving with the surfing and Leigh is loving it too.
Take care and stay in touch, all the best Lucy
The pics look amazing!!! Love the “holiday from sabbatical” comment…