Big Vacation with Mom and Rae!

Oh man, it's time to write about pictures... here we go.

This was the first part of my big nearly four week long vacation with my mom and sister Rachel. They came into Spain via Madrid and managed to catch the bus up north to Logroño. Since both of them had been in Logroño before, we took advantage of the first part of the vacation to visit some places in the northern autonomous community of the Basque Country. The Basque Country, or Pais Vasco, is divided into three provinces known in English as Biscay, Guipuscoa, and Alava.

The Basque Country has a different climate than La Rioja, as the latter where I live is much drier and hotter in summer. The Basque Country gets quite a lot of precipitation as it borders the sea to the north. It's a fairly mountainness or hilly region with a lot of vegetation and forests in the north. There are also a lot of nice beaches along the coast that are completely different from the more famous Spanish beaches on the Mediterranean. The northern beaches are more natural, with hills, trees, rocks, and a more temperate climate, than those more well known beaches like around Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga, Cadiz, etc. that tend to be flatter, larger, and more artificial.

This is Mundaka; it's not too far from Bilbao in the province of Biscay, or Vizcaya. The tide goes up, creating a river running inland, and down, revealing an expansive beach for surfers, sailboats, and suntanners alike.

This is a church outside of Mundaka called San Juan. It can only be accessed through the skinny stairwell that winds out from the shore to its peninsula location. The tide comes up and the stairs go away.

This is the castle of Butron located in Gatica of the Biscay province. The fairytale like castle dates back to the Middle Ages.

We owe many thanks to my flatmate Juan for taking us in his car to the many places we visited in the Basque Country. Here we are on the beach of Bakio, very near Bilbao in Biscay. Its close location to the metropolitan city leads it to be a very fashionable place for people to relax and catch a tan.


Here we are in front of the monumental vineyard hotel Marques de Riscal in Elciego of southern Basque Country in the province of Alava. The architect is Frank Gehry, the same man who designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and the similarity between the two buildings is quite clear.

My mom is eating a pincho in Logroño with our friend Tony.

Laguardia: medieval village just north of Logroño in Alava, known for its hilltop location, vineyards, wineries, and beautiful narrow stonepaved streets.


Juan and the girls in the main square of Laguardia.


Lastly, here's Juan strolling through a portal in the center of lovely Gernika in the Biscay province. Gernika is most famous for being bombed by the Nazi Germany during the Spanish Civil War in an effort to overthrow the Basque and Spanish Republican governments. Pablo Picasso painted perhaps his most famous painting 'Guernica' in commemoration to the bombing.