As I pack my bags to leave this beautiful place, I want to thank two local residents who have made me feel something like a genuine dyed-in-the-wool donostiarra.

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Rails to Trails is what we call them in the States, and there’s even an organization dedicated to converting old railroad right-of-ways into cycling and hiking paths. Here in the Basque Country they’re called vias verdes, or “greenways,” and the Ardituri path is the best one I’ve found so far. 

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Help me, Reader. There is a Spanish word for “blessing,” other than bendición. I remember that it sounds Basque or Mesoamerican, rather than Latinate, with a “z” in it, I think.
For those of us up here with children, grocery bags, arthritic hips, cases of Rioja, visiting senior relatives — whatever that word is, this is it. One local [...]

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I stand here on the coast corrected. (Actually that’s McKoy, standing on the cliffs at Zumaia, looking westward — click on this and the one below for a larger view of this part of the coast.)
It is just past “Aprille … [w]han longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,” and at various points along the Bay of Biscay [...]

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