The bays along the Northern Spanish coastline are host to so many small towns, larger ports and even larger cities that hold so much history, the remains visible even in this day and age. History is linked to either fishing or mining. Fishing is still prevalent, restaurants offer “Fish of the Day” caught overnight and landed that morning. Every type of fish you can imagine can be found for sale in every fish monger in every village, as well as fish products, tinned sardines, potted tuna, shredded worm like fish and even dried fish!
From our hilltop site in Zarautz, we can walk out onto a clifftop walk that heads down into the town. At one point the pathway splits and the righthand path heads backwards away from the beach down to an old stone monument that has been restored in part. The stoneworks tell a story that makes you look upwards to the remainder of the structure in the fields as well down towards the sea and makes you wonder if it was really possible, but old photos prove the unbelieveable feat.
The Mollarri loading bay was built in 1906 to store and load iron ore extracted from the mines of Andazarrate to Zarautz, the merchandise travelled in wagons along the 11 kilometres of overhead power cables which connected both towns. Cargo vessels would pull up to a dock on the furthest rock and load iron ore via a pulley system filtered from the mountain railroad. The exploitation of the mines reached its peak during the First World War and dwindled thereafter, with this plant closed for good in 1927 mainly due to the akward location of the dock.
Bathers in late 1920’s on Zarautz beach.
Getaria Port is along the coast and is a working port as well as a popular tourist location, due to one of it’s famous residents having a museum in the town, a dress maker called Cristobal Balenciaga. The musuem takes up a large portion of the hilltop town but the older quarter is still traditionally cobbled streets, overhanging houses and a beautiful church dedicated to fishermen and the sea.
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