A Fishing Village and a Famous Tree

On Monday morning, our stay in País Vasco (Basque Country) was coming to an end, but we had two more stops before returning to Segovia.

Our first stop was the fishing village of Mundaka on the northern coast of Spain, famous for its great waves for surfing.  The morning we went, however, the ocean was calm.  We walked around a bit, seeing some of the coast and the outside of the Basilica of Saint Catalina, a church built on a peninsula in a style in between the Gothic and Renaissance constructions we have seen elsewhere.  Note that the arches are neither pointed nor semicircular, but instead are a sort of in-between stage of an elliptical shape.

After our short walk, we journeyed onward to Guernica (spelled Gernika in Basque and pronounced gher-NEE-kah).  Gernika is famous today for the bombing it endured during the Spanish Civil War, in which hundreds of civilians were killed indiscriminately (the exact number of casualties is disputed) by Hitler's German forces in aide of the fascist nationalists led by Francisco Franco in 1937.  This event was immortalized in Picasso's famous painting Guernica that same year, seen below.

While in Gernika, we had the chance to see the Gernikako Arbola (the "Tree of Gernika" in Basque).  This oak tree is an important symbol of freedom to the people in the Biscay region of Spain.  It was under this tree that the Reyes Católicos (Fernando II and Isabel I) first swore to uphold the rights of the Biscayan people.  This became a tradition as each new feudal lord of the region stood under this tree to swear to uphold the rights of the people.  The original tree, the "Father Tree," lived from some time in the 14th century until the early 1800s.  When it finally died, it was replaced by its "son," a tree grown from one of its acorns, called the "Old Tree."  This tree was replaced again later that century by the "Son Tree" and its trunk was placed in a temple to preserve it in 1926.  In this way, both the Old Tree and the Son Tree survived the bombing of Gernika, continuing to symbolize the freedom of the people living there in spite of the destruction of the town.  The tree still stands today, in its fifth incarnation.

This tree is so important to the people of the region that it features prominently on the coat of arms, alongside two wolves symbolizing the founder of the region, Lope de Haro, as well as appearing on the coat of arms for several towns in the region, Gernika included.  Additionally, the symbol of the oak leaf can be found on public landmarks.