San Sebastian is a beautiful seaside city. It was easy to understand the attraction as a resort town. Even though it seemed we had traveled some distance, we could see Bayonne France from here!
From San Sebastian we traveled the coastal region enroute to Bilbao. One stop was Getaria, a village where fishing is still very much their livelihood.
Another stop was Guernica. Guernica was the site where on April 26, 1937 the German and Italian air forces tried out Hitler’s saturation bombing strategy. Reportedly Franco, the Spanish dictator, offered up the city as part of his fight with the Basques. After four hours of bombing and straffing, a couple thousand people had been killed and the city was largely in ruins.This led Pablo Picasso to paint his famous anti-war painting “Guernica”. In the middle ages the meeting point for the Basque General Assembly was under an oak tree on the hillside above Guernica. The tradition of the Guernica Oak continues today.
Before reaching Bilbao we visited a sheep farm. Here we got a lesson in making sheep’s milk cheese and yogurt. We also had fun mixing with the farm residents!
