Page 149 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide 2017 - Northern Spain

THE BASQUE C OUNTR Y  147

Basque Fiestas and Sports

The Basques are devoted to sports, excelling at conventional games, and inventing many
of their own. In football, Basque clubs have always played near the top of their leagues,
despite many sticking to a rule of fielding only local, Basque-born players. First among
indigenous Basque sports is pelota, played between two or four players with bare hands,
bats or a long basket. Enormously popular, it’s a fast-moving game that’s spectacular to
watch. The Basques also have a whole range of often outlandish traditional country
sports – wagon lifting, sheep fights and tug-of-war – many of which originated as tests
of strength and skill between villages, fishermen and mountain farmers. They can be
seen at the annual town and village fiestas, together with performances of the equally
distinctive Basque poetry, music, dance and folklore.
Bertsolaris are bards who improvise
witty songs, whose verses relate
current events or legends. They sing,
unaccompanied, to gatherings in
public places, often in competition.

Estropadak are
colourful tradi­
tional rowing
races held each
summer in San The Tamborrada is a cacophonous
Sebastián and festival unique to San Sebastián,
all the Basque in which uniformed drum bands
ports. The long, parade around the city during the
nar row boats night of 19 January, giving way to
were once children’s drum parades during
used for whale­ the next day. Succulent food
hunting. completes the fiesta.

Harri-jasotzailea (stone lifting), practised
by massive­limbed mountain farmers, is
one of the best­known Basque sports.
Basque lifters regularly exceed the records
set by standard, Olympic weightlifters,
and legendary champion Iñaki
Perureña was long considered
the world’s strongest man.

Aizkolari competitors have
to cut through a row of beech
logs in the fastest possible time
while standing on top of them,
jumping on to the next log as
soon as the first one is cut.

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