RISE OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY

Athletic Bilbao and Real Sociedad have gone deep in Europe in recent times, by mining fertile local talent pools. In a four-day trip to the region, FFT visits those clubs and more, to find out how quarries in Euskal Herria have thrived

- Words Ed McCambridge

No one has ever fallen for the Basque County quite like Archduchess Maria Christina. An exquisite pianist and polyglot, she left the Austro-Hungarian aristocracy to marry King Alfonso of Spain in 1879, and built a palatial holiday home on the shores of San Sebastian following a beguiling stately visit. In her Basque hideaway, she swam in the Bay of Biscay, gambled in a Monte Carlo-style casino she had erected and drank cocktails with renowned guests, the UK’s own Queen Victoria among them.

Today, her statue overlooks La Concha beach, gazing eternally across a corner of the world Maria Christina believed possessed a certain kind of magic.

It doesn’t take FFT long to see what the fuss is about as we land a few miles along the coast in Bilbao, the Basque Country’s largest city by population. Made of seven provinces that straddle northern Spain and a small section of south-west France, the greater Basque Country region – or Euskal Herria in the gloriously impenetrable local language – is among the most picturesque on Earth. From the back of a taxi winding to San Sebastian, we gaze to our left at the shimmering sea and lush green hills and vineyards to our right. The area’s sheer fertility is striking.

Such a compliment can be extended to the region's