Saturday, April 28, 2012

       Welcome to the Spanish autonomous community of the Basque Country, or El País Vasco in Spanish!  As you will remember from my fifteenth post, this autonomous community is centrally located along Spain's northern border.  Here's a close up map of it as well as a photo of its flag.



         As you can see from the included map, the autonomous community of the Basque Country contains three providences, Bizkaia, Araba, and Gipuzkoa.  As the map designates, all three of these providences also have their own capital city.
        As with all the autonomous communities in Spain, the entire autonomous community of the Basque Country also has its own capital.  In the autonomous community of the Basque Country, the capital city is Vitoria-Gasteiz.
        After reading the above city names, you may be asking yourself, now these city names don't look like they're in Spanish?  Well, you couldn't be more correct! They are indeed not in Spanish but in the Basque Country's unique language, Vasco, or Euskera, as it is referred to by the Basque people.
        In my introductory Spanish culture and civilization class, we learned that one of the stand out cities in the autonomous community of the Basque Country is Bilbao.  Here's a photo of a very interesting modern art museum called the Guggenheim.  It's located in the heart of Bilbao and was designed by American architect Frank Gehry.  Take a look!


           In addition to this fabulous modern art museum, the autonomous community of the Basque Country also offers a large quantity of delicious traditional Basque tapas called Pintxos.  The following is a photo of a traditional Pintxos bar in the Basque city of San Sebastian.

         
          In addition to these delicious Basque Pintxos, the autonomous community of the Basque Country  is also the home of numerous cultural festivals.  Here's a photo of the Basque Country's Tamborrada festival.  Take a look!


         This festival happens every January 19th-20th in San Sebastian.  It involves a lot of lively drum playing and is a great time for everyone in attendance!
          Well this is all for now, I hope you have enjoyed my seventeenth post as well as learning a bit about the Spanish autonomous community of the Basque Country.  In my next post, as I have said, I will continue to explore Spain's autonomous communities, this time having a focus on the autonomous community of Catalonia.


Here's where I found the map of the Basque Country, the photo of the Basque flag, the photo of the Guggenheim museum, the photo of the San Sebastian Pintxos bar, and finally, the photo of the San Sebastian's Tamborrada festival.

http://europa.eu/abc/maps/images/regions/spain/pais.gif
http://www.christiancallec.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Basque-flag.jpg
http://www.guggenheim-bilbao.es/img/all/el_museo/foto_postal_03.jpg
http://www.pyreneanexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Tapas-in-San-Sebastian.jpg
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5044/5335254926_87d9abb9d1_z.jpg

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