Back to Bilbao! for some hiking, caving and visiting a family nun!

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.

  

 

 A GIANT wasp and a GIANT slug!!

Above: When we got home the little resident mouse family has spawned a couple more!

Well that is all from us again for this week, the next blog with be brought to you by Kyran from Canada. 
here are some final videos of the waves that caught our fascination.
 

 

 

What a load of Cuenca!

 

Hello world! this week's blog is brought to you from Cuenca, an autonomous community city of Castile–La Mancha in central Spain.

So briefly the story of Spain and more specifically Cuenca is that it use to be occupied by Muslim Arabs.The Arabs saw Cuenca as a strategic location and built a fortress there. Then years later the Christians who previously occupied northern Spain started to to recover the Iberian peninsula.  Under the Christian pressure the Arab kingdom started to break into small provinces. In 1076 the Christians besieged Cuenca and 4 years later the Arabs signed over Cuenca as part of a treaty with Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile in exchange for military help.   

In more recent history Cuenca has been as turbulent as in other regions of Spain. There was poverty in rural areas, and the Catholic Church was attacked, with monks, nuns, priests and a bishop of Cuenca, Cruz Laplana y Laguna, being murdered. 

During the Spanish Civil War Cuenca was part of the republican zone (Zona roja or: "the red zone"). It was taken in 1938 by General Franco's troops. 

During the post-war period the area suffered a major economic decline. The city started to recover slowly from 1960 to 1970, and the town limits went far beyond the gorge to the flat surroundings. 

Cuenca however is more famous for it Hanging houses.
The Casas Colgadas - Hanging Houses

In the past, houses of this kind were frequent along the eastern border of the ancient city, located near the ravine of the river Huécar. 

Today, however, there are only a few of them remaining. Of all of these structures, the most well-known is a group of three with wooden balconies

Built around the 14th century the houses were once used as summer residences for the royal family.

***

The old Convent of Saint Paul

The Convent of Saint Paul was built in the 16th century by command of the canon priest Juan del Pozo, a monk belonging to the Dominican Order. Brothers Juan and Pedro de Alviz were in charge of the building project; Pedro worked on the convent and the cloister and Juan on the church.
The church was finished in the 18th century, in rococo style.
The convent was ruled by Dominican monks, but during the 19th century was handed over to the Pauline Fathers, who were based here until 1975, when they left due to the possible collapse of the building. In the 1990s the convent was restored to house the Parador Nacional de Turismo in Cuenca, which is a hotel.
The cloister has an ornamental source of water, and the cafeteria is the old chapel. From the convent the old town can be reached easily by crossing St Paul bridge.



Above in the foreground St Paul bridge.

Next up is the Cuenca Cathedral
 

 Cuenca Cathedral was built from 1182 to 1270. The façade was rebuilt after it crumbled down in 1902. It is the first gothic style Cathedral in Spain (together with Avila's one).

From that date the cathedral has undergone some changes. It is consequently a mixture of various eras of architecture including, Renaissance, Baroque, and Gothic Anglo-Norman.
You will notice these differences in the photos that follow.


The cathedral is officially the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Gracia ("Basilica of Our Lady of Grace").

Well there were a lot of amazing things that we saw this weekend, however I've not the time nor the patience to write of them all but I will show you some of the many many photos that we took along our travels. 

You will see of architecture, trees and animals as well as some photos of us just showing off.

 

  

 

Well that is all from us for another week.

 I will leave you with one last photo of what I believe to be stalk nests on some type of antenna, 

And you thought you had bad reception!!

Corn Cakes

This blog is from Sunday last week, I have just been a little lazy and have not had the motivation to post this until now.

This blog is just a walk that we took to a near by hills/small mountains that I can't seem to locate the name of.   

Also a recipe of some corn cakes that I learned from my Aunty. 

The above photo is of an old Roman bridge that we had to cross to get to the mountain we were going to walk up. Below the bridge is a small park where there were a few families gathered around. 

As you can see from the image below the mountain was not as impressive as the last mountain that was featured in this blog. It was a nice little walk and for an Autumn afternoon, but it was a particularly hot day.  

There is also a little fascination that Kyran and I have with trying to see a squirrel and any evidence that a squirrel might be around, hence the photo of an acorn.

That is all there is to say about the mountain hike now onto the recipe.

And a final photo of my Handsome Husband.