Exploring Basque Pueblos - Tolosa

We visited Tolosa, a small Basque pueblo on June 3. The local tourist office was offering a special cider-themed tour in conjunction with the weekend’s cider/grilled fish festival, and we decided to check it out. The Basques love a good festival. A few weekends back there was a nautical/tall ships festival in Pasaia that we visited as well. We were fortunate to enjoy sunny days for both.

We learned about Tolosa initially from one of our former classmates, a young Chinese woman who had moved there to live with her Basque boyfriend. She commuted each day to school – about a 30-minute ride on the “Cercanias” (local) train. We hopped on the train and enjoyed the picturesque green vistas.

Tolosa is small – it has about 20,000 inhabitants – but it is full of history and character. The tour was in Spanish, of course. Interestingly, it appeared that many of the people enjoying the tour were locals. We knew this because they kept saying “hello” to various people they knew as we walked through the city. Perhaps they wanted to learn about Tolosa’s history as well. Our guide was enthusiastic and proud.

Tolosa sits on the historic trade roads between France and the kingdom of Navarre, playing a role in the history of Castile as early as 1256. Sadly, it suffered multiple fires over the centuries. A few photos: (1) the Castile gate (18th C.), (2) the town hall (17th C.), (3) a typical narrow street, and (4) the Santa Maria Church (17th C.).

Our regular readers may remember we visited a local cider house back in January. There are several functioning cider houses in the Gipuzcoa region. But it turns out not in Tolosa. Rather there is a history of cider houses there. Many being traced back as far as the 13th century. We were a little disappointed to discover this because we thought we’d be visiting actual cider houses, as opposed to buildings that used to be used cider houses. Regardless, we learned a bit, enjoyed our guide’s energy, and got to taste locally-made cider accompanied by tortilla de bacalao. All in all, a fun little excursion.

Bonus photos:

Last weekend we went out to Lasarte-Oria, a suburb of San Sebastian, which was hosting an Andalusian-style festival. Our teacher’s daughter was dancing Sevillanas and we went to watch:

FYE – the “patitos” (baby ducks) in the park we walk through on our way to school each day:

We are in our last week of school – week 35! We’ll have more on that soon, along with stories about our visit to another Basque village this weekend.

Hasta luego,

Shana and Jeff