The North Coast of Spain, and the birthplace of Ignatius Loyola

Getaria is a beach town between San Sebastian on the east and Bilbao on the west.

Hondarribia, with the river Bidasoa and France in the background.

Zoom in on the map to see more detail about these places.

Last week we made a couple of trips to the North Coast of Spain on the Bay of Biscay. At the bottom right on the map is Pamplona, and on the upper right is Hondarribia, a Basque town separated from France by the Bidasoa River.

Hondarribia had a strategic location, so over the centuries, the occupants fortified it with high walls all around. They built and rebuilt it many times since the Middle Ages. Cindy loves castles and walled cities. This wall is one of the best preserved. Normally in June the town would be overrun with tourists, many from France.

But the border had been closed because of the coronavirus. We visited on June 22, the first day we could travel outside of Navarra (Hondarribia is located in the neighboring Basque province of Guipuzcua). It was also the first day the border was open with France.

One of the city gates. Much of Hondarribia's medieval architecture has been restored. It's a pedestrian city.

We were surprised to see that the city had a three-star hotel with the family name of the wife of Cindy's nephew--the Hotel Juaregui. The name means "palace" in Basque. The Juaregui family opened the hotel in the mid-1930s, just before the Civil War. We dined under the blue awnings. Great lunch of grilled red tuna and mozzarella salad. No idea if there is any family connection.

Hotel Juaregui's restaurant is called Embata, a Basque word for a stormy northwest wind. We were comfortable under the awnings.

That day we were content to head straight home. It's around 90 minutes by car from Pamplona.

The harbor at Passaia

Cindy had been plotting out some interesting places for us to visit, and we decided to check out the commercial port of Passaia just east of San Sebastian. On the east side of the inlet is the town of Lezo, which has some charming structures built into the vertical cliffs. The novelist Victor Hugo lived here for a time.

The inlet at Passaia

We walked through the little town toward the mouth of the inlet, and all along the way we found kids jumping into the water. But there was a definite hierarchy. Close to the houses and stores, the young kids were being watched by some parents. No lifeguards anywhere.

A little farther out were the high schoolers, and finally, on the steepest and most dangerous rocks were the young adults. Some alcohol, some weed, lots of music. Suddenly, we saw a huge ocean-going ship being towed into the inlet. The kids on the rocks had a close-up view.

Seeing such a big ship in such narrow passage reminded me of seeing the big Lake Erie ore ships navigating the crooked Cuyahoga River in Cleveland. It made me wonder about the quality of the water all those kids were swimming in.

The big ship headed for its berth, tugboats front and back.

Getaria, the whale watchtower

We headed west of San Sebastian to a town famous for whale hunting, Getaria. The Basques were known as great whalers as far back as the seventh century. Getaria received a royal concession for whale hunting in 1204. The Basques taught whaling techniques to the British and then the Americans.

We wanted to see the sights the town is famous for: the hermitage, lighthouse, and whale lookout.

All of this tourist stuff is near the top of a steep hill crisscrossed with hiking paths. We were quite exhausted when we got to one of the whale watchtowers, called a vigia, 350 feet above the ocean. On one side were beaches filled with tourists, on the other were surfers trying to catch a wave. The view was spectacular.

The surfers prefer this beach.

Hundreds of these whale watchtowers dotted the coast. All the crews competed to reach the whales first.

The Basques sailed all over the North Sea and North Atlantic harvesting whales as well as cod, which they preserved in dried, salted blocks known as bacalao. It became one of the protein staples of the Middle Ages. Mark Kurlansky chronicles this in detail in his book Cod and also in The Basque History of the World.

A basilica to honor St. Ignatius Loyola

The town of Loyola is southwest of Getaria, and since coming to Spain five years ago, I had always wanted to visit. It's the birthplace of Íñigo (Ignatius) Loyola, who founded the Jesuit religious order almost 500 years ago. My maternal great-uncles, as well as my father, brothers, nephews, and grand-nephews have all gone through the Jesuit institutions in Cleveland--St. Ignatius High School or John Carroll University, or both. 

For better or for worse, Jesuits schools are famous for strict discipline and expectations of excellence. Look no further than James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to find examples of their arbitrary punishments. But it's also true that many of them had a lasting positive impact on malleable hearts and minds like mine. Jesuits are associated with power brokers and intellectual elites; they also inspired grass-roots revolutionaries with their teachings of liberation theology. (Wikipedia summarizes their controversial history.)

Ignatius Loyola's family home. Photo from Loyola Global.

But I did not realize until I arrived in Pamplona five years ago that the fortress in the center of town was where Ignatius Loyola the soldier was wounded in battle. He suffered a leg wound that caused him horrible pain over several years, a pain that prompted visions and a religious vocation. The first thing you see when you walk into the visitor center in Loyola is a sculpture depicting a scene from that battle.

Fellow soldiers attend to the wounded Ignatius Loyola at the battle of Pamplona.

He was from an aristocratic family with an impressive home, but we were unable to go inside. It was still closed because of the corona virus. The home is towered over by the basilica that it is attached to. There is quite an extensive complex, with a retreat house, youth hostel, and library.

The Basilica was begun in the 17th Century. Photo from Loyola Global.

In front is a park with gardens and playgrounds. It was filled with families and children running, kicking footballs, riding bicycles and skateboards. The basilica was open.

The dome and the interior are magnificent.

We gawked at the rich interior and and took lots of pictures. Mass was scheduled to start in less than an hour. We decided to head home. It's about a two-hour drive back to Pamplona along narrow, curving roads. Basque country is rugged like that, all hills and valleys. 

Arrupe and Hiroshima

The hotel in Loyola is called the Arrupe, which sparked a memory for me. During my last year at St. Ignatius high school, Father Pedro Arrupe, the Superior General of the Jesuits, came for a visit. I met him briefly and have only vague impressions--a quiet, humble man. Like Ignatius, he was also a Spaniard from Basque country. 

Father Arrupe was a missionary in Japan during the war and was in the outskirts of Hiroshima the day the atomic bomb was dropped. He and his fellow Jesuits set up a makeshift hospital to care for the injured and dying, an experience that was seared into his memory.

It was several years after his visit to Cleveland that Father Arrupe coined the phrase "men for others" as the theme for all Jesuit education. I like to think that was part of our formation while we were there. It's what I try to communicate to the men and women I teach and work with today.