Hello world this is another blog from the Findlaters in Spain and it will the the last one of the Findlaters together for awhile.
This week coming Kyran will be heading to Canada to start his job in the ski slopes near Vancouver and I will remain in Madrid to finish out my work contract.
So the blogs from here on out will be alternating between Kyran and I (Canada and Spain).
So stay tuned this is where it gets interesting!!
This weekend however we headed back up to Bilbao to say our good byes to my grandmother, and while we were there we thought we would go check out some of the sites we missed the first time around.
First up we visited San Juan De Gaztelugatxe,
It is an island located just off the shore along the Bay of Biscay. The
island is cone-shaped and features a tiny church on its highest point
that is dedicated to John the Baptist. Although not proven, it has been said that he even set foot on the island.
Over the centuries the church has burned down and been rebuilt several
times. It is believed that the first hermitage that existed here was
erected in the 9th century.
Later on, San Juan de Gaztelugatxe had a strategic purpose as a
defensive outpost for the lords of Biscay. It was used as a bastion
against the King of Castile, Alfonso XI. The seven knights from Biscay fought against him at San Juan de Gaztelugatxe. Alfonso XI was humiliated and was forced to retreat
Gaztelugatxe, literally means “castle rock” in Basque (“gaztelu” = castle + “aitz” = rock)
As luck has it, two weeks before we got to the island it was closed for maintenance and will open in two weeks after we left. So we managed to get to the bottom of the island but we were unable to climb it, so sorry that all the photos are from the mainland.
Above you can see the island San Juan de Gaztelugatxe in the back ground.
Next stop was the cuevas (caves) de santimamiñe
Santimamiñe cave, Kortezubi, Biscay, Basque Country, Spain, is one of the most important archaeological sites of the Basque Country, including a nearly complete sequence from the Middle Paleolithic to the Iron Age.
It is best known for its mural paintings of the Magdalenian period, depicting bisons, horses, goats and deers.
Its excellent location over the Urdaibai estuary was probably most important in its continued habitation, first by Neanderthals and later by Homo sapiens.
The cave was the most important cave in the area because it got the most sunlight during the day and it's entrance was protected from the north winds - this is important if you are cold! From what you can see in the pictures, we are wearing heavy duty warm gear and we were STILL cold!
One thing that this cave was famous for was it's "fried egg" formation which is really a baby stalagmite.
As a child I visited the caves and you would be able to walk all the way about 70 meters into the cave to the see the fried egg formation and apparently all the local children would touch it. As a result of the constant touching the fried egg has dried up and "died",also as a result of the huge school groups visiting the caves over the past 90 years the temperature of the cave has risen and has caused the painting to disappear and lichens and mosses growing on the walls degrading the cave.
Due to the above mentioned damage to the cave, it has now been restricted so that you can only enter in the first chamber area, about 30-40 meters at most. The cool part is now you get to go down to the Chapel of San Mames and they have set up a 3D video theater, and you watch a guided tour of the caves at the end of the tour. The guided tour is a virtual representation of the caves, from (I assume) survey scans with 1cm accuracy. The tour lady had a game style controller and she can walk the character/camera through the caves and explore on our behalf!
Next after the caves and an attempt at a picnic in freezing conditions we were off to visit Lekeitio
The municipality has 7,293 inhabitants (2005) and is one of the most important fishing ports of the Basque coast.
Above. Huge waves hitting the wave break and as you can see from the building in the background the waves are breaking above two stories high.
Lekeitio is definitely a very beautiful town, if I had the money this would be somewhere I would consider settling down.
Below: the Island just off Lekeitio, on low tide you can walk out to the island and on high tide as you can see the waves go around the island and actually cross over also known as cross sea.
In surface navigation, a cross sea is a sea state with two wave systems traveling at oblique angles.
Now the real reason that we went to Lekeitio was to visit a dear old great aunt on my fathers side who is a nun at the convent of Madres Dominicas, where she has been 'in prison' most of her life.
It was lovely seeing my great aunt and even all the other nuns were happy to have a visit and all came out to say hello, and apparently nuns have a roomba vacuum cleaner.
There is a saying that i have learned of since visiting my aunt.
If you loose your cows you should go ask the nuns where they are, as despite them being locked up they seem to know everything before you do.
Next up: a bunch of random photos that i didn't want to bore you with earlier.
here are some final videos of the waves that caught our fascination.
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