Most beautiful villages in Basque Country

The Basque Country may be small, but it packs in remarkably varied landscapes: the Cantabrian coast, with its narrow estuaries and fishing harbours, and the more open Álava interior, a land of vineyards, fields and reservoirs. Among the prettiest villages in the Basque Country you'll find towns founded in the Middle Ages, anteiglesias tied to the origins of the Lordship of Biscay, and communities whose way of life was utterly transformed in the 20th century.

On the coast, the sea explains almost everything. Lekeitio, founded in 1325 opposite the island of San Nicolás, grew prosperous on fishing, seafaring and privateering, as did Getaria, the Gipuzkoan town surrounded by txakoli-covered hillsides where Juan Sebastián Elcano and Cristóbal Balenciaga were born. Ea surprises visitors with its diminutive size and the estuary that splits it in two, stitched together by four bridges, while Mundaka, at the mouth of the estuary that bears its name, preserves legends of kings and Scottish princesses said to tell of the Lordship's beginnings.

Inland, Álava moves at a different pace. Labastida, in Rioja Alavesa, traces its roots back to the pre-Roman Berones and has a seigneurial past linked to 14th-century Castile, with vineyards always in view. Uribarri Ganboa, by contrast, looks out over the waters of the reservoir that transformed its surroundings in the mid-20th century, and keeps its old quarter and the Church of San Andrés on the shore. Between them, travellers will discover two very different ways of understanding the Basque Country.

Monument guide

Monuments of Basque Country

Castles, cathedrals and monasteries in the region, in our guide.

12 monuments