Spain - Bilbao (Part 2)

Hello out there sorry for posting this blog up later than usual.The end of the week just gone has been hectic, anyway in this blog I'm bringing you more of the fiesta (la semana grande) in Bilbao, and i'll be introducing some basque sports and some dances as well as some of the country side that we visited. So lets get in to it!

***

First up is a Basque sport known to the locals as pelota or pelota vasca translated it means 'ball' or 'basque ball'.

 The way the game works is usually two or more players or teams  take turns at hitting a ball against a wall called 'fascia'. 

There are a variety of ways to play the game, with variations in the type of ball used be it rubber or leather,the type/ length of the racquet used and whether it is played by males or females.   

The team to serve bounces the ball, then propels it towards the playing area of the narrow, front wall where it has to rebound between the low line demarcating the low off-area and the high line demarcating the high off-area.

The ball may either be played so it rebounds directly off the front wall onto the playing floor or onto the long side wall first. The opposing team may either play the ball immediately after rebounding from the front wall or side wall without rebounding from the playing floor or after having rebounded from the playing floor once. Confusing right!?

The next sport is Harri jasotzea (stone lifting)
The lifting of stones is one of the most widely known Basque rural sport outside the Basque Country, largely thanks to the prowess of Iñaki Perurena, a harrijasotzaile (stone-lifter) from Leitza, in Navarre, the first on record to lift stone over 300 kg.

There are usually two stone-lifters competing in each event, taking turns in one or several attempts, to perform the greatest possible number of lifts. 

A lift is considered complete when the stone has been properly balanced on the shoulder.
The four types of stone most frequently used are rectangular, cylindrical, spherical and square and were established at the beginning of the 20th century. The stones are traditionally made of granite, their weight normally ranging from 100 kg to 212 kg.

Next: Aizkora proba (wood chopping)

Literally "axe test", this rural sport more commonly known as aizkolaritza, from the Basque word for a wood-cutter. 

This is a very popular sport today but its origins are to be found in the rural wood cutting and charcoal burning communities of earlier periods.

In this competition, the wood cutter has to chop through a number of tree trunks arranged on the ground in rows as quickly as possible while standing on the log to beat his competitors
.
This sport is often seen in summer at local festivities and open-air dances, held in towns all over the country.

Now we're up the the Traditional Basque dancing;

There are approximately 400 distinct Basque folk dances, each with its own story and significance. Some, the more ancient ritual dances, are performed only for particular events or circumstances and initially were performed by male dancers only. Many include the use of sticks and swords that the dancers strike together as they progress through the movements of the dance. 

The basic characteristics of Basque dance are seen in the choreography, historical and festive elements, and the universal traits of tradition, entertainment, tourism and especially religious-festive events. You can tell a good dancer by how high they jump, their double clicks, how high they kick, and their gracefulness. They wear cool bells on their legs!

 

 Enough now about the sports and dances lets move on to the Fiestas!! 

Churros - sometimes referred to as a Spanish doughnut.                                                                                                        There are two types of churros in Spain, one which is thin (and sometimes knotted) and the other which is long and thick (porra). They are both normally eaten for breakfast dipped in hot chocolate or café con leche (coffe with milk).

This photo was taken by Kyran and here you can see all the tents that line the river. Basically everyone of these tents are purely for serving alcohol, and some serve food. In between the different tents there are areas where there are concerts and sports and performances throughout the day and into the early hours of the morning.  

The party that goes on at night can been seen in the below video!

A Little Trip!

A day trip to Gernika was the plan however my grandmother decided that she would like to join us and we all fell asleep on the bus, so we ended up at Bermeo on the coast.

Bermeo

Bermeo has 17,159 inhabitants and is the most important fishing port of the Basque Country.                                                    The town has a long maritime tradition and its economy is based on the fishing industry.                                                   From stories that my grandmother told me while we were there, this town used to catch the best tuna! She tells of driving to Bermeo to buy tuna over 2 meters long.

 

 

                                                                        Just out of interest this an oil rig that was visible off the coast of Bermeo.

A side note with no photos: The reason we set out to see Gernika (basque spelling) was that on April 26, 1937, Guernika (spanish spelling) was bombed in one of the first aerial bombings by Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe.

The bombing is considered one of the first raids on a defenseless civilian population by a modern air force.
The number of victims of the attack is still disputed; the Basque government reported 1,654 people killed. 
Sadly though time did not permit so we were not able to stop in Gernika, only passing through it was viable. There were no old buildings remaining because the town had been rebuilt from the ground up. They have a sacred tree which among other things is as memorial to the bombings. 

Off to the Funicular of Artxanda
It links downtown Bilbao with the recreational area at the summit of the nearby Artxanda Mountain, which has a park, several restaurants, a hotel, a sports complex, and offers panoramic views of the city. The funicular is a cable-cart thing that goes up the mountain.

We managed to take some great pictures of Bilbao from up there!

The current funicular was opened in 1915. During the Spanish Civil War the funicular was damaged by bombing, but reopened in 1938. The funicular closed in 1976 after an accident that injured several employees of the operating company, and did not reopen again until April 1983. The line was closed again in August of the same year, as a result of flood damage, and did not reopen until November.

 

  Above is The Guggenheim museum from afar!

A note about the architecture - they have a high density population due to all these old looking apartment blocks, and even in the little tiny villages they build these. Certainly not the Aussie style Queenslander with nice big grass backyard that these people design for, most people aspire to live in tiny little apartments and take life easy!

Well that all folks,

Work starts for me this week - so there will be less exciting blogs and less frequently, but I will do my best to keep you all updated.

Till next time!

Spain - Bilbao (Part 1)

Bilbao
 
The center of the Basque industry, Spain's leading port and the largest Basque city. 

It is the tenth largest city in Spain, with a population of 353,187 in 2010.


The official name of the city is Bilbao, as known in most languages of the world. Euskaltzaindia, the official regulatory institution of the Basque language, agreed that between the two possible names existing in Basque, Bilbao and Bilbo, that the historical name in Basque is Bilbo, while keeping the officially of the first one.

 
Despite the many wars, the city prospered during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when it rose as the economic center of the Basque Country.

The Spanish Civil War started in Bilbao with small uprisings suppressed by the Republican forces. On 31 August 1936, the city suffered the first bombing. On the next month, further bombings by German planes occurred, in coordination with Franco's forces. 

After the fall of Francoist Spain and the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, in a process known in Spain as "The Transition", Bilbao could hold democratic elections again.

Since the mid-1990s, Bilbao has been in a process of de-industrialisation and transition to a service city, supported by investment in infrastructure and urban renewal



Basque Culture
The Basque may be Europe's oldest race. Anthropologists think they could be descended from Cro-Magnon people who lived in the Pyrenees mountain ranges 40,000 years ago.

 

La Semana Grande

Semana Grande (Spanish for Big Week, Aste Nagusia in Basque) is Bilbao's main festival attracting over 100,000 people. It begins on the Saturday of the 3rd week of August each year, lasting 9 days and has been celebrated since 1978. People from around Spain, and increasingly from abroad, attend the celebrations.

The celebrations include the strongman games, free music performances, street entertainment, bullfighting and nightly firework displays. The best views of the display are from the city's bridges. 

 
We attended the fireworks (grand finale can be viewed above) followed by a concert which was a major tribute to Mecano - a Spanish pop band which became one of the most successful Spanish pop bands of all time.






Story Time
For those on my Facebook I promised a story to this strange looking photo, so here it is.

This is my grandmother, in her younger days she used to buy big 14kg tuna caught from the northern seas and then bottle and sell them. The knife she is holding in her right hand is what she would use to dismember the tuna. 

One day my aunty's boyfriend had come to see her and was waiting downstairs for her. My father and his brother noticed this and alerted my grandmother who was not at the time dismembering the fish but setting up to do so. 

The two mischievous boys got the massive knife and put it in her hand without her realizing what they had done. My grandmother had not yet met this new suitor of her daughter and went to the balcony to see him. As are her mannerisms she waved her hands around saying "you!, are you my daughter's boy friend", the boy was so startled by the loud woman waving the giant knife and a bottle at him that he bolted down the street! Or so the story goes... 

***

The Images below are of the Guggenheim Museum(a museum of modern and contemporary art), and a Puppy.

 

Guggenheim Museum
The museum was inaugurated on October 18, 1997.

In 1991, the Basque government suggested to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation that it would fund a Guggenheim museum to be built in Bilbao's decrepit port area, once the city's main source of income. 

The Basque government agreed to cover the US$100 million construction cost, to create a US$50 million acquisitions fund, to pay a one-time US$20 million fee to the Guggenheim and to subsidize the museum's US$12 million annual budget. 

In exchange, the Foundation agreed to manage the institution, rotate parts of its permanent collection through the Bilbao museum and organize temporary exhibitions.

The museum was built by Ferrovial, at a cost of US$89 million.


 





 

Puppy
For friends of Kyran on Facebook this was his mystery photo for the week! 

Puppy is a 13m tall topiary sculpture of a West Highland White Terrier puppy, made in a variety of flowers (including Marigolds, Begonias, Impatiens, Petunias, and Lobelias) on a transparent colour-coated chrome stainless steel substructure. 

In 1995, the sculpture was actually at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Sydney Harbour in Australia, with stainless steel armature and an internal irrigation system. While the Arolsen Puppy had 20,000 plants, the Sydney version held around 60,000. 

The piece was purchased in 1997 by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and installed on the terrace outside the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

Fun Fact
Before the dedication at the museum, an Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA - Basque terrorist) trio disguised as gardeners attempted to plant explosive-filled flowerpots near the sculpture, but was foiled by Basque police officer Jose María Aguirre, who then was shot dead by ETA members. 

AND

In the summer of 2000, the statue traveled to New York City for a temporary exhibition at Rockefeller Center.

With a list of areas that we should see, we set off to see the Hanging Bridge and Portugalete as well as two beaches. As it turned out it was are cold rainy day and so we only opted to go to one beach, much to Kyran's relief as the other beach was a nudist beach.

The panorama above was taken from Portugalete looking on to the Hanging bridge and the town of Las Arenas in the background.

"The only gay in the village"

... 

But seriously though

The only people at the beach!

- Plentzia -

The Hanging Bridge

The Vizcaya Bridge is a transporter bridge that links the towns of Portugalete and Las Arenas, crossing the mouth of the Ibaizabal River.

People in the area, and even the official website, commonly call it the Puente Colgante (literally "hanging bridge")

It is the world's oldest transporter bridge and was built in 1893.

On July 13, 2006, the Vizcaya Bridge was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It is the only Basque monument on the list. Also, in Spain, it is the only monument in the Industrial Heritage category.  

Furthermore, it is considered to be one of the most outstanding constructions of the European Industrial Revolution and without doubt, one of the greatest engineering achievements of the 19th century.

The bridge, still in use, is 164 meters long, and its gondola can transport six cars and several dozen passengers in one and a half minutes. 

Portugalete

In 1300 Portugalete became the main competitor port for Bilbao, but it lost its predominant position in 1511 when the trade privileges were granted to the Port of Bilbao instead of Portugalete 

 

Plentzia

Plentzia is a resort town with a large beach beside the Plentzia River estuary, in the round, shell-shaped Bay of Plentzia, shared with neighbouring Gorliz and Barrika. 

The beach is very popular as it is clean and the sea is calm due to the shelter of the bay and the town has a lot of amenities for visitors.

We spent the greater part of the afternoon in Plentzia after having a lovely lunch at one of the local restaurants we walked along the wall (left) that encloses the large beach area and fell asleep near the buoy at the end of the wall.  

As the rains started to come in again and the temperature started to cool we decided that it was time to call it a day and head back to Bilbao.

On the walk back the the train station we stopped and fed various schools of fish that were swimming around in the clear blue water. 

Both upstream and downstream from us there were children with grandparents and parents trying to catch fish with a hook tied to a piece of string.  

This seemed like some sort of tradition or past time, as there were many families along the river doing the same thing.

 

Overall we found Plentzia to be a quiet, family filled beautiful little town.

Some Photos in and around Bilbao

 

Left: Kyran with Sangria that he purchased for 1.75 Euros at 7% alcohol.
He was now ready to face the cold as he forgot to take his jumper that day.

 Well that's it for this installment of traveling with the Findlaters stay tuned for the next installation that should be posted by Monday every week. 

***