This route between the old port of Guipuzcoa and the French one reveals the history and landscape of the Basque Cantabrian Sea. Gabi Martínez
https://viajes.nationalgeographic.com.es/a/getaria-a-guethary-por-costa-ballenera-vasca_17221
Les vagues vibrantes et la température cantabrique font de la côte basque un paradis pour les pêcheurs. Les 62 km qui séparent Getaria du basco-français Guéthary résument très bien la force de cette culture côtière marquée par la sardine, le thon ou l’anchois, même si l’animal qui apparaît sur les boucliers des deux villes est la baleine franche, si importante ici pendant des siècles. qu’on l’appelait basque. Baleine basque.
Pêcheur de Guéthary
En effet, le petit port de Guéthary conserve la rampe abrupte le long de laquelle les arrantzales (pêcheurs) faisaient glisser l’animal. Et à côté de la route, se distingue l’Hôtel Balea, une ancienne école transformée en hébergement qui rend hommage à la mémoire du cétacé désormais invisible.
Une placidité bonvivante
Guéthary dégage la placidité de sa station balnéaire contrebalancée par les vagues qui se brisent souvent avec tension sur les – discrètes – falaises de Parlementia. Les frontons et les cours à cliquet fréquents entre les petites maisons aux patios et les restaurants qui regorgent d’huîtres et de vin, et l’ambiance bonvivante s’étend vers Saint-Jean-de-Luz, où le soleil brûle phares, maisonnettes et tours de guet d’une coquetterie séduisante.
Hondarribia, Floride
La côte sauvage s’industrialise dès le passage de la frontière espagnole. Les immeubles apparaissent comme un choc, mais Hondarribia retrouve bientôt le port et le ton exquis d’une bourgeoisie imposante car forte et classique. Il y a des maisons peintes de couleurs vives qui présentent des pots de fleurs exubérants sur le balcon, et la vieille ville offre un ensemble monumental impeccable de pierres propres déterminé par l’architecture défensive. Se distingue le château de Charles Quint, une fortification transformée en auberge.
Le déclin du calmar
Les Hondarribiarras se sont tellement défendus que leur date de référence est Alarde, commémorant la libération d’un siège de 69 jours survenu en 1638.
Pendant l’Alarde, les zuritos et les txakolí arrosent abondamment les plats de daurade ou de homard des cuisines stellaires sublimées avec simplicité du quartier de La Marina, de l’autre côté des murs. Dans cet habitat de pêcheurs, ils expliquent qu’il est de plus en plus difficile de trouver des calamars parce que les dauphins les mangent, “vous pouvez le confirmer à Pasajes”, officiellement appelé Pasaia. Et là, Txarli, le pilote vétéran de La Motora qui traverse l’embouchure reliant les rives de San Miguel et de San Juan, corrobore la débâcle du calamar en regardant la statue d’une batelier tenant une rame haute. Quelques bateaux de pêche partent également du port de Pasaia et rejoignent désormais la tranchée de Capbreton pour observer les cétacés, des dauphins communs aux cachalots en passant même par les orques.
Pasaia: the female port and the shipyard of memory
Pasaia is a symbol of the female influence in ports, because when men disappeared for months forced by deep-sea fishing, women took charge of the town. They also rowed across the mouth of the river. This industrial enclave where the hustle and bustle of cranes merges daily with that of trains and ships, has produced generations of rowers, and its female team of rowers is the one that has won the most Leagues.
The Jacobean pilgrims board La Motora to cross to San Juan, where there is Albaola, a shipyard specialising in rebuilding period ships that also has a museum explaining how the Basques led the world whaling trade until the 17th century. Inside there are longboats, traineras, and privateer ships under construction, although the star of the show is the replica they are making of the San Juan ship, discovered in Red Bay, Canada, in 1978 thanks to the research of Selma Huxley. National Geographic dedicated the cover of its July 1985 issue to it.
The penultimate whale captured and the Old Port of Donosti
Albaola is located in a cove on Mount Ulía. On the other side lies Donostia, another of the ports from which boats leave to observe cetaceans. The fishermen’s guild has a shop at the end of the Old Town where you can eat or buy canned food from all over this coast. From bonito from Bermeo to mackerel from Ondárroa, including belly from Zumaia. Prepared naturally, with virgin olive oil, smoked or, of course, Donostiarra style. A few metres above the Old Town, with wide views of La Concha beach, the Aquarium offers a visit to the skeleton of the penultimate whale hunted with a boat in the Basque Country, the last one with a harpoon, because the one in Orio was shot with dynamite.
100% seafaring Orio
In 1901. Despite the lack of epic, the people of Orio dedicated a song, a square and a party to that moment, which is celebrated on 14 May every five years. The commemoration dramatises the capture with a cork whale, but pampering the doll to show that it will not be repeated.
The old Orio was built on top of a hill, facing the estuary. The climb is a pleasure that, from the church of San Nicolás, allows you to travel to the Middle Ages between houses like mansions that were largely improved thanks to the sea: building galleons, trading in iron or fishing for horse mackerel and mackerel. These are very well restored buildings, with coats of arms, walls, doors and balconies worked in detail. And as the sculptor Jorge Oteiza was born here, his works can be found in many corners.
Getaria and its horizon
The coastline continues towards Zarautz, where they have exchanged the boats for surfing. And, following the road along the edge of a sea that when the wind blows sprays the vehicles like a deluge, the other Getaria appears. Here one of the most robust fishing fleets in the north is moored, and it is particularly worthwhile to go to an auction and have tapas or eat octopus soup. Always under the protection of the mountain and the promontory that form a silhouette that some associate with a rodent, and call it the Mouse of Getaria. On its crest the lookouts were stationed for years. The remains of the watchtower can be seen in the area where the lighthouse stood. There are those who, from that summit, still look towards the northeast as if it were possible to see the profile of the other Getaria.