Today's diary is different. Some friends and kind people (like ridemybike, JayinPortland and more) what I find here, in DailyKos, get interested about my origins. This diary is for all they. Today I will show to all you my native country in some images. The images are the more important in this diary. I wish all the readers-viewers like.
All this images make I remember very nice things. Thanks to the people what make I find for write this diary.
The Basque Country is a little country in Western Europe what can be inside of a circle of 100 miles. All the country has 3 millions of inhabitants.
First I wish you know where is my native country and about the basque symbols:
Here is a link to a map what shows the location of the Basque Country in Western Europe
Map of the Basque Country (Euskal Herria in basque language):
The box in the map talk about the inhabitants of the cities and about the height above the sea level (in meters).
These are the basque flag and the basque anthem. I hope you like:
The basque language is the nicest cultural property of the basque people. This is the alone pre-indoeuropean language in all the Western Europe. The oldest language living in Europe. Surely you will not understand no-one word, but in the next videos you can hear talking basque language. This is the sound of the basque speakers.
If you wish some of basque music, I must recommend something of Maurice Ravel, the best basque musician in the history.
Kepa Junkera makes more modern music. Modern basque folk. He wins a grammy.
Some years ago the basque TV do a cute documentary series of images called in basque "Euskal Herria lau haizeetara" something like "Basque Country to the four winds". Like you know I'm not an expert translator (Euskal Herria=Basque Country, lau=four, haizeetara=to the winds?).
Like you will see my native country is so green in a big part. Oceanic climate without dry months. Mid-size modern cities with long history and many industries, green mountains, and sea with pretty beach in the summer.
This is Irunea, Pamplona in english and spanish, the oldest city, with mileniums of history, and the historic capital of the Basque Country and the Kingdom of Navarre. It is a green city, one tree by two persons (and they are 190,000 inhabitants). Industry center with an important assembly plant of Volkswagen (german) cars (now have 4,500 workers and they will have 1,000 more the next year, very good new).
This is Bilbo, Bilbao in english and spanish, the biggest city and the biggest economic center. The Guggenheim museum Bilbao (nice image in the link of the building designed by Frank Gehry) is know by many people. The industry is the basis of this city and of the basque economy since a lot of years.
This is Donostia, San Sebastian in english and spanish, another basque city. Very cute city for go to the beach in the summer. Cute but so big. Industry and tourism for so high income people.
This is Gasteiz, in english and spanish Vitoria. Again industry. Irunea, Donostia and Gasteiz have very close size.
And this is Baiona-Angelu-Miarritze (Bayonne-Anglet-Biarritz in english and french). Biarritz is very nice too for go to the beach. BAB is the last of the basque big population agglomerations.
Other nice places in the sea are Getxo, the nicest suburb of Bilbao and Zarautz a turistic city. Pretty places.
The mountains. Lower population areas. The basque people love the mountains. Always you will see a basque in the peak (and a catholic church). From the east to the west:
Going to the south the territory becomes more plain and more dry until the River Ebro.
Many people go to the mountains, walking or in bicycle. They are very good basque cycling riders like Miguel Indurain, Roger Lapebie, Marino Lejarreta, and many others with a pro team in the Tour de France called Euskaltel, since years. And they are very good basque mountain climbers like: Juan Oiartzabal, Alberto Inurrategi the 10th climbing the 14 peaks above 8,000 meters and the youngest ever, Edurne Pasaban, Josune Bereziartu, Patxi Usobiaga, Iker Pou and others. They are two of the national sports, with the Euskal pilota, and the soccer. They are basque soccer players champions of the world like Didier Deschamps, Bixente Lizarazu, , Xabier Alonso, Javier Martinez Aginaga,, Fernando Llorente and others like Andoni Zubizarreta or Telmo Zarraonaindia. Other important sport in our country is the baskeball. We have a decent team what recently travel to Menphis and San Antonio for play against both NBA teams. The Baskonia have his base in Gasteiz.
These are examples of the Basque pelote:
They are very strong guys. A common guy would not move these balls more than 3-4 meters after some hours playing to this game. The common persons and the childs play with less strong balls.
Other form of the same sport. They are the fastest balls of all the games in the world.
Well I have a lot more for tell and show about my native country, but for today can be enough. I hope the persons what get courious about the Basque Country enjoy with this images despite understand not the sound (in Basque language). It was not possible find some good image explained in english.