Taking the valley road up towards Artea, I was reminded that it was not just Bilbao that took to industry. Up and down the narrow, steep valleys of Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa, workshops and small factories, many making machine parts, thrive. A tradition of working iron in small, water-powered ferrerías extended back at least to the fourteenth century – with some three hundred of them in place by the sixteenth century. The Basques had, however, mainly been farming people. Their system of inheritance by primogeniture ensured that property – normally the family farmhouse, the caserío or basseri – remained undivided. The road to Artea followed on of these valleys. Factories, warehouses, workshops and sawmills were dotted along the valley floor. Lone cyclists, wearing the lurid Lycra colours of some local team, pedaled uphill through the truck fumes. Basques are as obsessed by bicycles as they are by balls. The five-time Tour de France winner Miguel Induráin emerged from these pedal-obsessed valleys. His imitators continue to risk life and limb amongst the traffic every day.
No comments:
Post a Comment