Bilbao, Spain
Flag of Bilbao 2nd August Having spent two weeks in the UK I am off to Spain, starting in the north-west, in the city of Bilbao. There are a number of reasons why I chose to start my Europe trip here but in a nut shell the Basque region has always had a draw for me. I have never been to Spain and felt it would be an appropriate start to this part of my trip as it was an integral part of my original 1974 / 75 travel plans. Map of northern Spain & Bilbao I was drawn to the fact that a Guggenheim Museum was built in this region. The people of the Basque Region here are somewhat unique with regards to their language in that their language, Euskara, is a language-isolate and is the last such language-isolate in Europe, and as an amateur historian this certainly arouses my interest. (A language isolate is unrelated to any others, which makes it the only language in its own language family. It is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical (or "genetic") relationsh...