 |
EXPLORING INLAND: The Vasco da Gama Bridge gives the people of Lisbon a new way to cross the broad Tagus
|
The fertile imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien may have roamed to the Basque country when he was dreaming up The Hobbit. The coincidences are compelling between the book that enthralls adults and children and this autonomous region of Spain: the deep greenness, the rocky lairs in mountains 300 million years old, the eagles and griffon vultures corkscrewing its skies. Even the main city, Bilbao, in the Basque language is Bilbo, the name of the hero of The Hobbit. All this and the fact that terrifying events countervail physical beauty.
Ah, that it was a fairy tale! But no, the Basque story is an epic that began in the Cro-Magnon mists and can't find an end, a self-perpetuating saga where the "ism" of nationalism has mutated into terrorism and schism. It is where the separatist group ETA, hidden in these green hills and in city apartments, plans the mayhem it has been perpetrating for the past 30 years. And ETA does not survive in a vacuum; the political groups that represent it or seek dialogue with it can summon thousands of people to their rallies.
This is not at all the image of themselves the peaceful majority of the 2 million Basques would like presented. They'd rather talk about their fine ways to cook fish or lamb, about their sculptor Eduardo Chillida, fashion designer Balenciaga, or Augusta Masters winner José María Olazábal. But when driving through the cow-cropped hills or walking the old part of Bilbao it's hard to keep something from the back of your mind, literally — el tiro en la nuca, the bullet at the base of the neck. ETA's trademark, along with the car bomb.
This year ETA has been especially busy both with el tiro en la nuca and car bombs. The chief prosecutor of Andalucía, Luis Portero, received a bullet in the head as he was entering his home in Granada in October. A week later in Seville, ETA terrorists walked into the rooms of throat specialist and Air Force colonel Antonio Cariñanos and shot him in the head. Days later, ETA attached a bomb to the underside of the car of Máximo Casado, a prison officer in the Basque city of Vitoria, blowing him apart as he sat behind the wheel. The month ended with a huge car bomb in Madrid that killed a judge, his driver and his bodyguard.
And so it goes on. Walking around Bilbao, the barbarity seems underscored by the fact that this former rustbelt city has reasons for optimism. Its heart, if not its soul, is going through a Guggenheim Museum-led reincarnation.
From the dark waters of Bilbao's River Nervión, the clean Cantabrian coast draws one west, up through the port city of Santander and on to Santillana del Mar, or the "village of three lies." Santi means holy, llana means flat and del mar means beside the sea, yet as the smiling Santander resident who recounts this story says, "It's not so holy, it's hilly, and it's five kilometers from the water." The villagers argue that the name comes from St. Iliana, or Juliana, who arrived there from the sea. The debate did not stop Jean-Paul Sartre describing Santillana as "the most beautiful town in Spain." This may now be an exaggeration, but its cobbled streets and fine stone buildings are still admired by busloads of tourists.
Aside from terrorism, tourism is one of Spain's biggest challenges: how to keep welcoming some 50 million visitors each year without all those feet and detritus ruining the sights they flock to snap in the Iberian sunshine. Just outside Santillana, the Altamira Caves house paintings of bison and other animals that carbon-dating says were done around 13,500 B.C. So many people want to see them that sheer body heat threatened to erase what millennia had not. Now, only 35 are allowed in each day. There is a three-and-a-half-year waiting list. The rest of us must admire the old artists from a distance, via a museum video with an overblown commentary.
MORE >>
PAGE 1 | PAGE 2 | PAGE 3 | PAGE 4
|
|
|
|
Iberian Connections
A count with a social conscience, flourishing ancient trades and folk-singing Irish pilgrims
Photo Gallery
Check out the photos from this leg of TIME's Fast Forward Europe voyage
Immigrant's Tale
An African from a former Portuguese colony is now a Lisbon architect with political aspirations
Bilbao Reborn
The Guggenheim museum is just a part of this rust belt city's renaissance
Dotcom Paradise
The Catalan capital is becoming a hive of young Networkers
It's Up to Us
Spanish footballer Josep Guardiola on the price of players and the need for cultural identity
Fine Art of Science
Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava's buildings echo the natural world
Language of Bridges
A Spanish-led team always has one more river to cross
'I Can Only Be Happy if My Neighbor Is Happy'
Missing family jewels are the last things on the mind of a modern Portuguese count
Engine of Change
The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao has helped turn the region's economic fortunes around
Between Two Worlds
TIME talks with Roma journalist Joan Manuel Oleaque
People To Watch: Leire Pajin | Madredeus | Ariadna Gil
|
