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Mention "la playa" in Spain and most people think of the sizzling strands of
the Costa Brava and
Costa del
Sol on the Mediterranean.
But shift to hondartza, "beach" in the
Basque language of Euskera, and an
entire new northern world opens.
Forty-two beaches, from gentle nooks to surf-slammed cliffsides, stud the
112-mile coastline along the Bay of Biscay. They form the sandy welcome mat
to a Basque culture that loves to eat, drink and party.
The four beaches of Donostia/San Sebastian - Donostia in the Basque
Euskera language, San Sebastian in Spanish - are the most famous and
photogenic, and just 10 minutes from France. They're celebrating their 160th
year in the celebrity game - all because of doctor's orders.
Fit for a queen
Spain's Queen Isabella II was suffering with skin problems, and her
physician prescribed the sea. She came north to
San Sebastian in 1845, and
the garrison town with the perfect beach came into the limelight.
In the early 20th century, Queen Maria Christina followed in those royal
sand prints, becoming so fond of San Sebastian that she had the
English-style Miramar Palace built on a bluff above the city's half-moon
bay.
The current Spanish royal family has shifted its beachcombing to Majorca,
but San Sebastian keeps its glorious Belle Epoch architecture, a 4-mile
promenade with a filigree railing as glossy white as marshmallow crème, and
a cuisine that has elevated Basque farmhouse cooking into an art practiced
by 14 chefs awarded Michelin stars.
Once royalty left, the clever city leaders invited modern royalty to its
shores: Scores of movie stars jet in every September for the International
Film Festival.
Thousands of more ordinary travelers, especially the neighboring French,
arrive with the good weather each year. They play on not one but four
beaches.
Ondarreta, one part of the city's crescent harbor, was considered the
more posh strand when the queen frolicked in San Sebastian.
Just beyond rocky outreach known as the Pico del Loro, the larger La
Concha beach completes the curve, all the way up to the fishing docks. Both
are protected from the Bay of Biscay by Santa Clara, a leafy gumdrop island
with its own beach that welcomes picnickers boating in.
By contrast, San Sebastian's fourth beach, Le Zurriola, is open to all
the bay's ferocity. Surfers rear up on its waves, raging just behind the new
Kursaal Convention Centre.
A sandy sampler
Yet for all its cachet, San Sebastian is just one of 42 beaches along the
coastline from the French border to the western edge of the Basque country.
Here's a sampler:
Zarautz has the longest beach in the Gipuzkoa province of the Basque
region, more than 1½ miles. It's been a longtime competitor to San
Sebastian, and some swimmers and surfers prefer it.
If you're on the beach Aug. 24 and near the Palace of Narros, block out
the waves and listen hard - that scratching you hear may be a ghost.
Fleeing religious persecution in France, a group of Huguenots set sail
for America, but their ship wrecked off Zarautz. The good people of the
palace saved the lone survivor, but when they learned he was a Protestant,
in the era of the Spanish Inquisition, they promptly walled the poor man up,
and the sound you hear Aug. 24 is his scratching to break free.
Getaria, with its twin beaches of Gaztetape and Malkorbe, is a tiny town
with big heroes. Native son Juan Sebastian Elkano, continuing Magellan's
voyage after the navigator was killed in the Philippines, completed the
first circumnavigation of the globe in 1522.
Much later, Getaria welcomed designer Cristobal Balenciaga to its town
rolls, and this year it is expanding the museum showcasing his haute
couture.
Following the coast west, the rocky coves of Mutriku's Seven Beaches are
popular with nudists and divers. At Laga's beach, the mountains cascade down
to the shore.
"The beach is below the cliff, and it's the most beautiful one in the
Basque country," said guide David Elezgaray.
Surfers travel the world to try the waves at the fishing village of
Mundaka, said to have the best left-hand wave in Europe. Nudists unfurl
their towels at Barrika's beach.
A few miles west, the posh community of Getxo, linked to Bilbao by
architect Norman Foster's new subway, has a cluster of five beaches, five
times the opportunities for doing nothing.
On Arrigunaga, beachcombers can watch other people work, as merchant
ships glide in and out of the Nervion estuary on their way to Bilbao. |
