BEAUTIFUL TOWNS

Coast  |   Inland   |   Cities  |  Santiago Road

In the IX Century the sepulchre of the ST James apostle was found in the Iberian Peninsula. The King Alfonso II was impressed by the huge political as cultural importance of this discovery, moreover, he ordered the construction of a Cathedral in his honour. This way, Compostela, became with Rome and Jerusalem, in one of the most important sanctuaries in the world.

Thanks to all the phenomenon of the remains, the peregrination was appeared. Santiago the Compostela became in the “winning post” of the pilgrims, and millions of pilgrims have reached the sepulchre of the St James Apostle. Nowadays the Santiago road is still a way of meditation and of meeting a new culture, normally the pilgrims walk along the route because of personals motives or even to move away from the daily pressure.

Every 25th of July celebrates the festivity of the St James Apostle and the year that this day coincides on Sunday, the year becomes holy year. This year is a holy year and the holy door is open to welcome all the visitants from the different roads all around the world. It is calculated that 80.000 pilgrims are going go through the Basque Roads to Santiago. This is because Bitravel wants to make a special edition of the bulletin about the different road of Santiago through the Basque Country.

Roads to Santiago there are a lot, but through the Basque Country go three of the most important, mostly because, if we take into account, that the Basque Country is the forced way for the pilgrims from the rest of Europe.

Is logical to think that before walking along the peninsular Basque Country the way goes through different roads in the French Basque Country, this roads are referential ways to the Iberian Peninsula: Hendaya, you arrive here through the Santiago Bridge, which crosses the Bidasoa River. But mostly, the pilgrims cross the frontier between Donibane Garazi (St-Jean-Pied-de-Port in French) and Roncesvalles. Donibane-Garazi is a lovely village where the pilgrims normally stop to discover the streets and to visit the monuments before descending until the Orreaga Monastery in Roncesvalles where the “French Road” starts.

Once in the peninsula, there are two basic roads: the Camino de la Costa (or the North one) and the French Route. The conection of them we have called it the Inland Road.