The Basque Country, Gascony and Hautes-Pyrénées

A pelota-playing mayor in the province of Soule recently welcomed a group of travelers with the following announcements: that the Basque Country is the most beautiful place in the world; that the Basque people were very likely direct descendants of Adam and Eve via the lost city of Atlantis; that his own ancestors fought in the Crusades; and that Christopher Columbus was almost certainly a Basque. There, in brief, was a composite picture of the pride, dignity, and humor of the Basques. And if Columbus was not a Basque (a claim very much in doubt), at least historians know that whalers from the regional village of St-Jean-de-Luz sailed as far as America in their three-masted ships, and that Juan Sebastián Elkano, from the Spanish Basque village of Guetaria, commanded the completion of Magellan's voyage around the world after Magellan's 1521 death in the Philippines. The distinctive culture—from berets and pelota matches to Basque cooking—of this little "country" has cast its spell over the corners of the earth. And continues to do so—just witness the enduring fame of Mark Kurlansky's 1999 The Basque History of the World. More »