GUIDE TO SMALL HOTELS AND ACCOMMODATION IN RURAL AREAS
Farmstays provide accommodation, with or without meals, and other additional services in a house located in the countryside and integrated within the farm. You may hire rooms, the whole house, or both. Staying at the farmstays helps you discover the characteristics of the rural Basque Country.
The Basque country has many modern and elegant hotels, but also offers charming smaller establishments, camping sites and rooms in country houses, with full facilities and comfort at modest prices. In fact, this option of accommodation in a rural setting has recently become a good alternative for the tourist wishing to get closer to nature and experience the Basque customs, and to be received with a warm and personal welcome.
EUSKADI EVERYTHING WORTH SEEING VISITING AND KNOWING
Each valley, each fishing port, each of the summits in the Basque Country is yet another beautiful spot to be discovered. The savagely green beauty that is present in most of the territory, contrasts against the craggy and winding coastline, with the beautiful beaches and the picturesque fishing ports. All the community shelters unique natural spots from which to contemplate and enjoy its people, its gastronomy or its monuments.
Full information can be obtained, together with the best possible service, at any of the Tourism Offices distributed throughout the territory, in order to get to know each and every nook and cranny within the Basque Country, its infrastructures, its cultural activities, hotels, restaurants, addresses and telephone numbers, etc.
Euskadi is a nation of contrasts: it is densely populated and industrialised, however it is exuberantly green and unspoilt. Both landscapes are only a few km from each other, and so it is possible to find natural spaces and ecosystems still in their original state, very close to large cities. The beauty and importance of these parks and reserves offer numerous possibilities for excursions, sports, and relaxation.
The best way to discover a country is on foot, discovering it step by step, enjoying its landscapes and meeting the local inhabitants. We hope that with the guide in your hand, a relaxed state of mind and a readiness to discover everything that each route has to offer, you will discover the landscapes that the Basque Country has to offer and gradually get to know us better.
If anything characterises the Basque Country, it is its excellent cuisine and the quality of its restaurants, from the most sophisticated, to the most humble. Basque traditional cuisine, based on simple elaboration processes, bases its success on the quality of the raw materials (fish, meat, cheeses, etc.). On a parallel level, new trends are appearing in Basque nouvelle cuisine, which incorporate new ingredients, aromas, textures and combinations. All these dishes are always accompanied by Rioja wine, from the region of Alava, or with cider or "txakolí" (Basque white wine); all three wines that are typical of Euskadi.
It is easy to have a good time in the Basque Country. All the towns and villages in the community celebrate their local festivities with numerous street events, in particular during the summer months. There are some very peculiar traditions, such as the parades in Irun and Hondarribia, the geese in Lekeitio, or the running of young bulls in Laguardia. And all the villages and towns organise open-air dances, gastronomic competitions, or rural sport exhibitions, which guarantee enjoyment for all.
THE ROAD TO SANTIAGO, TWO ROUTES THROUGH THE BASQUE COUNTRY
The Camino de Santiago, or Way of St. James, pilgrimage route used by pilgrims in the Middle Ages to reach Compostela (Galicia, on the peninsula's north-west), has two main routes in our community: the coast route between Hondarribia and Balamaseda; and the inland route, that passes through Alava. The former is a local route, built by the daily relationship between neighbouring villages. The second route is much older and was deliberately built to join the central plateau and the Basque and Pyrenean mountains.
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ALAVA
