Towards the end of last year, we had days with leave that had to be taken, and no days with space for leave, or time to plan.

A kind friend in Spain did a little research for me. She pointed out that the north west of the country needed a chance to recover from terrible wildfires, and patiently offered a few suggestions about the north east. I followed those up but discovered we were too late for the obvious places, so our search drifted even further north into ‘el País Vasco‘, where it seemed there were still options available.

I’d never visited the Basque Country before, but I’d always wanted to. It and its troubles, have been part of my understanding of Spain. They had coloured my Spanish studies at university, the violent separatist group ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna – Basque homeland and liberty) insisting on attention. In 2011 the violence officially ended. In April 2017 the group said it had disarmed. And the following year – 2018 – ETA announced that it had disbanded.

Now, in 2022, we had the chance to visit, to savour the cooking my professor had talked so highly of.

In a few frantic hours we’d booked our flights into Bilbao, reserved a car and found a small hotel in a fishing town, Lekeitio. Our stay was to be for four nights. We knew nothing about the town, other than what we could find online. This included two significant facts – Lekeitio is one of the most important fishing ports on the Basque coast, and it is prone to be wet and windy.

As we packed our bags I wondered what both would mean for our September visit.

Here is a link to the blog that drew our attention to Lekeitio in the first place

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023