Well guys as you can see, we are in yet another incredible place
No big whoop you know, what?
studying booty, stunning booty, natural booty.
Anyways guys hopefully you're starting to get the picture that the
Basque Country is super diverse.
It's got amazing stories, and it's a place that we're really passionate about
Anyway, dude let's try this again.
The Basque Country is a mystery.
Their origins are unknown and their language
Euskera is related to no other .
They may be the last indigenous Europeans:
their culture preserved by the mountains that
form the border between Spain and France
During the dictatorship of Francisco Franco,
Basque culture was suppressed and
ETA ,an armed separatist group ,
waged a bloody war for independence that ended
with a ceasefire in 2011.
With peace, Basque culture is flourishing,
especially their food,
earning them dozens of Michelin Stars
in an area the size of New Jersey
Our story is intimately tied to the Basque Country.
Four years ago we started this You Tube channel
while living here as English teachers.
Then a video we made about San Sebastien
won us an international travel filmmaking competittion
and launched our careers as travel bloggers.
Now we're coming back to show you the
best of three Basque provinces
from mountains of ancient myths
to stunning coastlines with killer surf
and as much food as we can stomach
one bite at a time .......Wow so good.
But before we hit the main course,
let's start with an appetizer.
Okay first up the Cave of Santimamiñes
No mames?
No Santama-mames guey!
It's really difficult to know where to start with Basque culture because it's such an
ancient culture so we decided to stop here at La Cueva de Santimaniñes
which is 14,000 years old. It's a prehistoric cave and has some of the earliest artwork
and traces of Basque civilization
Well, my name is David Alexgaray
Right now we're in the reserve of the biosphere
of Urdabai and in particular in the area known as
Santimaniñe. Here we have the prehistoric
paintings that date back 14,000 thousand years,
one of the keys to understanding the origins of the Basque people.
Somehow they're letting us into the cave ,
into the darkness we go.
In the first chamber they found remains
of food and bones
and then they discovered paintings of what
the local animals were: bison, bores,
and then hunting them.
Further back in the cave system is where the cave paintings are.
They've sealed that to help preserve it.
Seems like a pretty impressive cave system,
and I think if I were living you know 10,000 plus years ago,
this would be a good place to live.
They say that the Basque are one of the oldest
cultures in Europe, but what does that mean?
The origins are not very clear.
For instance, we do have still descendants
proved by DNA of the people
that lived in these caves.
The person that has received us, his daughter has still
DNA traceable back to the prehistoric remains that were found here
What did you think? I'm super into archaeology
and to come here and be able to actually
enter the cave... pretty incredible. How about you?
They have that TV show, Are You
Smarter Than a 5th Grader ?
I think they should say, can you paint better than a
fourteen thousand year old cave man? No
All right well we're going to hop into the car
We're going to head down from the mountains
into the beautiful little town of Gernika,
and we're going to tell you why
when we get there.
Alright so right now we are in Gernika and this is basically the symbolic
capital of the Basque Country
because of this tree right behind us now exactly
We know that there's been no tree here for centuries
under which the Lord of Biscay
would reunite with a nobleman and here they would establish the laws that
govern the province.
So the tree's symbolic because this is where all the
early Basques tribes would meet and pass laws
and eventually they codified these laws
into something called the Fueros, which are basically the sacred set of
laws that govern Basque democracy and the Basque way of life.
Later when the Basque Country will become part of the Spanish Empire , the King
would send a representative here to meet with the Basque and recognize their
autonomy within the Spanish kingdom.
This stained glass windows super symbolic.
There's obviously the tree right here.
The gentlemen in the center
is holding a copy of the laws.
The way to do it ? Lie down on the floor.
I don't know how many of you guys out there are Lord of the Rings fan
The tree of Gernika really reminds me of the tree
you know in the white city of Gondor.
Maybe JRR Tolkien had some sort of
influence when he designed tree of Gondor of being the tree of Gernika.
Let me know your thoughts down there
comment box
Marko has just enlighten me
about this word that we all use in
English .....the head honcho
when you're in charge.
What does that mean, Bro?
The people who were here as
representatives are called jauntxos
So a jauntxo was kind of like a big powerful person
and this is one of the few lone words
from Basque that we have in English.
Now the question is: who's the
head honcho in here, Brother?
The importance of Gernika really is that
it's safeguarded Basque laws , institutions
the Fueros, even as
the Basque Country was absorbed
into the growing Spanish Empire.
But that trait of finding
autonomy within larger political
entities goes back even further back to Roman times
So we're going to explore a Roman heritage
here in the best possible way.....
over a glass of wine..."chin chin."
Vamanos.
Ladies, gentlemen damas y caballeros
it's super windy.
We're about an hour and a half outside Gernika
We've come to La Rioja Alavesa
to these incredible ruins behind us
to talk about
Rome's influence on the Basque Country.
So today we've gone on quite the journey.
We started at the northern-most border of the
Basque Country, which is the ocean
and now we're here on the banks of the Rio Ebro
which basically divides Basque speaking lands from Castilla to the
south and to the north of us it's all green to the south of us
it's basically Mediterranean climate.
And one of the biggest difference between
the Basque Country and the rest of Iberia is the language. This is one of
the only non Latin languages in all of Western Europe. When the Roman Empire
came here back in the day ,they essentially left the northern lands to
the Basques and settled down here.
That's why there's wine that's why there're
grapes and wheat
These are all things the Romans needed for their Empire
and they kind of set up shop here
and just chilled
Anyways we're going to go meet up with a local guide
right now who's going to teach us a bit more
about the impact of Rome here in La Rioja Alavesa.
This is the Ponte Manitble or the Mantible Bridge.
It was built in the second century when the Romans arrived.
The Romans were conquering Spain,
and they arrived at to this region mainly
because of the geographical situation.
We are between mountains and and Ebro River.
The Romans are very important in our history
because they are the ones that
brought the wines here ,
which is nowadays the winemaking is the
main economic activity in this region.
We are off to study the Roman influence in
the most delicious and delectable way
a glass of vino tinto.
So we're off to Bodega El Fabulist... Fabulista?
which means fables or something along those lines
I don't know yet, but we will know soon.
So stay tuned.
Alright guys. Well we have just arrived into the city of La Guardia
not the airport in New York
but recently voted one of the most beautiful towns in all of
Spain. You can see why: this is a wine city
It's perched on this hilltop.
Cars can't be on here
because the whole town has
like this connected tunnels underneath it which were originally used for
defense but are now used as wine bodegas
such as the place we're going right now
We're now in the bodega
Bo-De-Ga Say it now.. Bodega.
La Rioja is the biggest wine region in Spain.
We're going to go try some tempranillo
which is ninety-five percent of the wine from here
is tempranillo.
This winery El Fabulista
a really small production winery.
The barrels that are in the other room,
that's their entire production.
This tempranillo is gorgeous you can see
differentiation in the colors when you're spinning it around.
Got to shove the nose way in there.
Get it in there. Come on.
Catastrophic
Wine tasting is over and now we are
on our way to another amazing winery.
Just a ten-minute drive away
Oh my god, guys.
Oh my god, Becky.
You would not believe the light that we
just scored on this place
Okay so we just arrived at our next location, Marques de Riscal
This is a winery but also a hotel.
And the hotel's designed by Frank Gehry- who designed
the Guggenheim in Bilbao.
The plan is to check into our room ...
supposed to be pretty nice
and then stay the night
and eat dinner in their wine bar.
This is nice.
Que romantico!!
Marko?
I'm sharing a room again?
Tapas time.....tapas time
ensalada de queso, pulpo
little hamburgers and Marques de Riscal Tempranillo
not quite crianza or a.....
What is it?
Don't know what it is but it's a bottle of wine
and we're going to drink it.
We have had an amazing first day here in
the Basque Country and there is so much
more on the way.
We hope that we've given you a good introduction to what this place is
about and why we're so passionate about it but tomorrow we're diving in to the
heart of it going to the Basque Highlands.
So make sure you tune in for that.
If you like this video, give it a thumbs- up.
Don't forget to subscribe to Vagabrothers if you've not already
and share this video with
your friends or your travel buddies
and in the meantime remember to stay curious,
keep exploring and we'll see all of you vagabuddies on the road.
But first I'm just going to
pass out.
Love you guys. Bye.
What's up everybody? I'm Alex and I'm Mark, and we're two brothers from
California teaming up to win the Biggest Baddest Bucket List
but first we got three minutes to show you 24 hours in Europe's coolest city San
Sebastian. This one's ripe. Look at that.