We’re not the kind of travelers who stick to the big cities and famous sights. I mean, obviously: We structured two days in Madrid around trees, one (admittedly very famous) painting, and a promise to go back to one specific playground. Now, we’re spending a couple of days looking at birds.
I’m only kind of kidding. Last night and tonight we’re staying at the Urdaibai Bird Center, located within the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve. For birdwatchers, professional or amateur, it is probably more well known than it was to us as an important flyaway site and research center for migration and ecology. We are bird appreciators but far from watchers. Still, this place is rad as hell and I’m glad we found it while we were looking up every campground and taberna that had a website in the Urdaibai region.
We’ll have a lot more to say about Urdaibai after we explore it more. For now, we just wanted to post a picture from last night’s La Noche de San Juan celebration in Gautegiz Arteaga, the town adjacent to the center.
This holiday commemorates the Feast of San Juan across the Spanish speaking world. It has pagan roots, and falls suspiciously close to the summer solstice on the calendar annually on June 23 or 24th depending on where you are. It was held in a large park in town and began with some traditional-looking dance followed about an hour later by the lighting of a giant bonfire.
Of course, there were also toys at the playground including a zip line.
A main advantage of getting out of the city and staying in more remote places like this is you get to spend time in communities less developed and cosmopolitan than large urban areas, some of them are even nestled into picturesque valleys like this. It’s a nice change of pace to tuck into nature for a while.