Towards the end of January we will no doubt still be shivering and moaning about the cold, but Rosie Khdir discovers the villages of the Basque Country that will be celebrating the end of winter.

On the last Sunday of January the people of Ituren and Zubieta, two small villages in the Pyrenees, begin preparations for their end of winter carnival.

This festival is a long standing tradition with both villages, where local people dress up and chase away the bad spirits of winter. The main part of the carnival involves a procession from the depths of the forests toward the village square by what are known as the Joaldunak.

At the sounding of a horn from the mountain slopes above the Joaldunak, villagers clad in sheepskin, high hats, neckerchiefs, ribbons, lace petticoats, carrying whips and with huge copper cow bells round their waists, make their way to the crowds waiting in the village.

Some villagers dressed as witches and demons, representing the darkness of winter, are scared away by the carnival bear, a man dressed in rams wool and horns (not far off resembling a character from Where the Wild Things Are). Then a week of celebrations begins, with traditional foods, drink and songs, to welcome in the forces of spring and fertility.

The carnival is of Pagan origin and is considered to be linked to the energies of the earth. In 2008 the carnival was recognised by UNESCO as part of the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

This year the festival starts on January 30th and last until February 6th, so why not take a trip to the beautiful Basque Country and wave goodbye to winter the Pyrenean way.

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Image credit: birasuegi

Tags: History, P&O Ferries, Spain by Rosie Khdir
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Tomas Mowlam looks at the news that Catalonia in Spain may soon ban bullfighting.

The vote in the Catalonian regional parliament today narrowly passed with 67-59 vote and five abstentions, to debate a law which could lead to a ban.

It’s a narrow victory, but a victory none the less for animal rights activists, who argue that other cruel sports like bear baiting have disappeared from Europe so why should slowly killing an equally big mammal, in an equally cruel way, have the protection of the armour of tradition and culture?

The vote came about after a petition was started with 180,000 signatures against the brutal sport by Prou! (Catalan for enough) and it has become a touchy subject.

Brigette Bardot has even waded in, with a letter to the Catalan Socialist Party which said bullfighting was “an incredibly sadistic spectacle”.

AP reported that “the issue proved so sensitive and divisive that Friday’s voting was kept secret, a rarity in the Catalan legislature.

“Some lawmakers covered their hands with newspapers as they pushed electronic voting buttons at their desks.”

Some in the pro bull fighting community have said that it’s just a way of Catalonia distancing itself even more Spain; it has its own language, culture and substantial regional autonomy.

The motivation doesn’t matter that much though, what’s important is that this could be real step forward for preventing cruelty to animals in Spain.

“The parliament has recognized that this is a subject that society is concerned about. Now for the hardest part, winning the legal battle,” said Proud under a banner reading THE MPs SAID YES on their website.

If Catalonia does ban bullfighting it will be the second Spanish region to do so after the Canary Islands in 1991.

Matadors were once great stars but its popularity has declined, and the only bull ring in Catalonia is in Barcelona.

It’s still big in Sevilla, Madrid and Pamplona, and some Catalonians are worried that it could hurt the tourist economy as well. What? The majority of people who come to Barcelona don’t do it for the bullfight, a spectacle which is pretty stomach churning.

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Image Credit: Cloudsoup

Tags: P&O Ferries, Spain by tmowlam
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Christmas is a time for heart warming stories, says John Hillman, so what better way to start the festive countdown than with a story of loss, high seas adventure and, of course, a very happy ending.

With Christmas approaching, and the pantomime season upon us, it looks as though we have a new ‘famous feline’ tail to tell, one to join our regular festive favourites such as Eliot’s Macavity and Puss in Boots.

Sandi the Seacat tells the tale of a remarkable ginger tom who went out for his usual Friday night stroll and, through a series of mishaps, found himself onboard The Pride of Bilbao and bound for Spain.

How Sandi managed to get all the way from his quiet patch of backyard territory to the hold of a P&O Ferries ship remains a mystery, but his owners, Tim and Patricia Austin, from Lee-on-the-Solent on the outskirts of Southampton, are convinced that he was the victim of a sinister catnapping.

“We know our cat wouldn’t have gotten into a car or van with strangers voluntarily – even we can’t get him into a car. We think he got out of the vehicle on the ferry when someone opened the door and he ran.”

Said Tim Austin, who spoke to Portsmouth Today.

“Him being micro-chipped has been absolutely key to his return – without that he would probably have been put down after they found him.”

“And P&O have been fantastic. He’s been well looked after.”

Indeed once Sandi was discovered by P&O Staff, wandering the car decks of the ferry, he became the one of the first cats to experience P&O Ferries’ famous hospitality on the Portsmouth to Bilbao route.

Brian Rees, P&O spokesman, said:

“Since he was found he’s been treated like a VIP – he’s had a cabin to himself for the return journey and been dining on chicken and salmon. I think most of the crew have had a cuddle – they’ll be sad to see him go.”

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Image credit: Fritzchen

Tags: Lifestyle, P&O Ferries, Spain by admin
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We might crave turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce but what do our continental cousins tuck into during the festive season? Tomas Mowlam explains.

In the Netherlands there are a great range of sweets; Kerststol, is an oval shaped fruit and nut loaf, with an almond paste in the middle, Kerstkrans is a puff pastry ring filled with fruit and nuts and Banketstaaf is a flaky pastry log with almond paste in the middle decorated with cherries.

There’s also Speculaas, short crust biscuits with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and other spices. They’re decorated in traditional shapes and are also eaten in Belgium and parts of Germany. Oliebollen are deep fried dough balls dusted in sugar sometimes with fruit inside them.

In Belgium la bûche de Noël, a rich creamy log shaped cake. Belgian’s also tuck into cougnou or cougnolle a sweet bread shaped like the baby Jesus, usually served with a cup of hot chocolate.

In Spain the big meal happens on Christmas Eve, la nochebuena. The main dish is a roast; lamb, cordero asado (above), or a main fish dish depending on the region or taste. There are great starters like white asparagus, Esparragos blancos, and traditional tapas and soups.

There is a wide selection of desserts including turron, an almond nougat, along with los polvorones , soft crumbly cakes, and marzipan figures.

Straight across the channel the French go in for Christmas meals in a big way. The big meal was traditionally eaten after midnight mass, though this is not as common. A roast goose, l’oie, is the main meal but oysters, les huîtres, are served along with salmon and caviar as starters. And of course litres of wine to wash it down.

In Alsatian France slices of Gugelhupf eaten, it’s a sweet dough ring with candied fruit and nuts, and in Provence 13 dessert items are traditionally served to represent Christ and the apostles.

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Image Credit: jlastras

Tags: Belgium, France, Netherlands, P&O Ferries, Spain by tmowlam
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A lot of people tend to see graffiti as a negative thing, as a form of pollution, something which damages or defaces our world. In Spain graffiti is an expression, a form of art, as Rosie Khdir finds out more…

As you walk down a beautiful old cobbled street in a Spanish town filled with century old buildings, it does tend to fill you with sadness when you see a spray painted word scrawled across an immaculate wall.

Northern Spain is rife with these marks, either to mark territory or to send a politically fuelled message, but recently graffiteros have been brightening up Spanish towns.

Many Southern Spanish municipalities have decided to hire such modern street artists to liven up their towns and adorn the city’s dull buildings with their colourful artwork.

This new craze has also moved to the north of the country where you can see ugly concrete walls transformed into canvases for surrealist art. Spanish artists, such as Ler, have been creating beautiful murals which are more pleasing to the eye than your average crew signature or political outcry.

Ler has taken his art all over the Europe but he is based in León and has been commissioned to decorate a number of buildings all over Spain. His commissioned pieces this year included decorating the wall of a nursery in Madrid and a high school in León.

All over Europe, people have begun to recognise graffiti as a modern art form instead of a nuisance or and authorities in Spain are now embracing it and making it a part of their society.

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Image credit: Pilar Ponte

Tags: Lifestyle, P&O Ferries, Spain by Rosie Khdir
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Tomas Mowlam looks at a novel new way to get to know rural Spain.

A free holiday in a beautiful rustic area of Spain sounds too good to be true, so what’s the catch?

The only one is that you have to talk, a lot. Run from several villages in Spain, the Pueblo Ingles program aims to give Spanish business people “intensive exposure to raw English and to authentic and impulsive conversation”.

Pueblo Ingles want you the humble English speaking public, to chat in exclusively English with Spanish participants, on a subject that is dear to you. Pueblo Ingles say “it could be anything from a presentation on martial arts, to a summary of evolutionary biology, or a tale of a close encounter with a hungry crocodile.”

The theory behind the program is that immersion in a language, in this case English, forces people to learn quicker and stop thinking in their native tongue because mental translation slows down conversation.
The seven day program is free and accommodation and food is provided, though you have to pay your own way to Spain.

That is far from a chore however when the programs take place in surroundings such as Valdevilla, a tiny highland village, just south of the La Rioja wine country. It dates back to the 18th century, with twelve rustic cottages looking out over the beautiful countryside. A second site La Alberca is surrounded by four mountain ranges, and the village of 1,200 people still has much of its original mediaeval architecture.

The program is more than just a working holiday however; it provides a chance to get a deeper understanding of Spain, without needing to speak Spanish, and make some real friends amongst amazing surroundings.

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Image Credit: Josean Prado

Tags: Lifestyle, Spain by tmowlam
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Northern Spain harbours some of humanity’s earliest examples of accomplished art. Rosie Khdir takes a journey back to the Stone Age.

Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola was a lawyer with an insatiable intellectual curiosity. It was this curiosity that led him to discover the infamous Palaeolithic paintings in the cave of Altamira in Cantabria.

In 1879, Sautuola was digging in the Altamira cave after discovering small bones, shells and drawings there four years before. His young daughter Maria, who was with him at the time, wandered a little further inside the cave and said she had seen pictures of oxen.

Sautuola who has studied prehistoric art in depth, immediately recognized these paintings, actually of bison, as prehistoric creations dating back to the Palaeolithic era of the Old Stone Age.

After years of fighting against the ‘elite’ of French pre-historians about the age and origin of these pieces of artwork, Sautuola’s discovery was finally validated using a modern dating technique 14 years after his death in 1888.

Since then the cave has become a National Monument and a UNESCO World Heritage site with its own trust and museum. The Museo de Altamira is only 2 km from the village of Santillana Del Mar, only and an hour and half from the port of Bilbao.

The exhibition is based around two main areas the “New Altamira Cave” and “The Times of Altamira” which includes a reconstruction of a Palaeolithic camp, a bear pit and the Chamber of Paintings. The “New Cave”, a reproduction of the original, offers visitors a look at the monument from 14,000 years ago.

These paintings are extraordinary and show us that even cavemen appreciated a pretty picture! The colours and detail of the bison, boar and doe featured in the cave is unbelievable, and the exhibition at the museum helps you understand how such art was possible in such a time.

The cave itself is currently in what scientists call a karst system which means the process of natural degradation is aggravating its structure. The cave itself is currently closed to tourists as a team from the Higher Council of Scientific Research and the Spanish Historical Heritage Institute try to establish a method of conservation.

For more information on opening times and the exhibition itself visit the official Museo De Altamira website.

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Image credit: Ramessos

Tags: History, P&O Ferries, Spain by Rosie Khdir
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Cradled between the waves of the Atlantic and Bay of Biscay you will find a land filled with unbelievable natural beauty. Rosie Khdir explores the natural wonders of Green Spain.

The regions of Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria and the Basque Country boast some of the most diverse landscapes in Europe, and are the perfect places for those of you who love the great outdoors.

Their salt-water rivers, endless forests, almost tropical beaches and rugged mountains are just begging to be explored and one of the best ways to do this is on foot. The old railway lines, cattle trails and Roman roads provide perfect hiking routes and there are some great spots for bird watching. There are visitor centres on all the reserves where you can get an itinerary designed to suit you.

In the Asturias region you can venture through nature reserves such as Somiedo which has the largest population of brown bears in Europe, or visit the Fuentes del Narcea, with one of Europe’s largest oak forests.

Green Spain is also riddled with stunning parks and gardens, most of which are open for public viewing, and are often connected to marvelous old country houses and manors.

La Florida is a particularly nice park situated in the city of Vitoria in the Basque Country. In the summer time this garden, reminiscent of those created in 19th century England, becomes a hot bed for music concerts, while in the winter it transforms into a huge nativity scene.

If it is the sea air you crave then you are certainly spoilt for choice in this part of the world. From the still waters of Barro to the well protected cove of Moràs, you will see a land of diversity, where white sandy beaches are framed by dark rocky mountains.

One reservation that is definitely worth the six hour drive from Bilbao, is the National Park of Atlantic Islands. These are situated between the estuaries of Vigo, Pontevedra and Arousa in the Galicia region and even contain a pre-Roman settlement.

This group of four islands is home to 200 species of different animals including turtles, dolphins, seals, whales and numerous colonies of seagulls. There is restricted access to these islands from Vigo, Baiona and Cangas and only a maximum of 2,200 people can visit per day.

All you would need is to look at the images of places in Green Spain and you’ll be booking your ferry in no time. Visit www.spain.info for a sneaky peak.

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Image credit: rover0

Tags: Lifestyle, P&O Ferries, Spain by Rosie Khdir
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