After eight years living in Copenhagen, an English journalist, driven by a passion for languages and mountains, finally rebels. With little more than an assortment of Earl Grey teabags, Danish candles and a map, Georgina Howard abandons her all-too-cosy, cinnamon-scented lifestyle and drives south. The journey leads to wild and craggy landscapes in the Basque Pyrenees on the French/Spanish border, where place names are written in a bizarre, foreign tongue full of 'x's and 'z's. Losing her heart to this beautiful land and her pride to the inscrutability of the language, Howard moves into an isolated barn in a mountain hamlet. While pagan festivals reverberate through the valleys, her Basque neighbours farmers, shepherds, a gravedigger and a champion female lumberjack observe her, bemused. Only when her daughter, Marion, is born after an unsuccessful relationship with an eccentric Basque miller do Howard's neighbours drop their reserve and welcome her into their homes. Taking Marion's upbringing upon themselves, they fatten her up on spicy Basque sausages and black bean stews, teach her Basque nursery rhymes and train her to milk sheep. Meanwhile, Howard converts a barn into the headquarters of an international business providing walking, culture and language tours. Resigned to the ineptitude of their new neighbour, with patience and amusement, the locals tow her car out of ditches and teach her how to stack wood, catch mice, unblock septic tanks and drink wine from a leather gourd. In the Footsteps of Smugglers follows the adventures of an outsider: a single mother, linguist, cosmopolitan nomad and cultural chameleon who paradoxically makes her home among an indigenous people deeply rooted in their land, with a language and culture dating back to Stone-Age times. Unwittingly, she repays their hospitality by luring anti-terrorist squads, blackmailers and spies into their midst as the dramatic past of the Basque Country proves to have unexpected and far-reaching consequences. An inspiring, humorous travel memoir, Bradt's In the Footsteps of Smugglers weaves behind-the-scenes vignettes of daily rural life and historical research to produce authentic insights on all things Basque, threaded with a rhapsody on the theme of identity.

Vorwort
. Unique travel memoir covering 25 years of a single mother's life in remote mountains . A wide-ranging, easily digestible introduction to Basque people and their culture . Basque Country tourism up 10% on pre-pandemic levels (4 million tourists, 2022) . Author co-presented TV documentary on the region with Michael Portillo (2022) About Bradt Travel Guides . Founded in 1974, Bradt is now the largest independent guidebook publisher in the UK with over 200 titles in print . Serial winner of the Gold award for Best Guidebook Series in the Wanderlust Reader Travel Awards . Bradt guides are written by authors who really know their destinations. Many are resident there, or have been visiting regularly over a number of years

Autorentext

Originally from Birmingham, UK, Georgina Howard (pyreneanexperience.com) studied European languages before heading to Copenhagen where she worked as a writer and taught intercultural awareness skills to Danish statisticians. After eight years, she rebelled. With an unsatiated passion for maps, mountains and metaphors, she packed her bags with Earl Grey teabags and Danish candles, driving south to an isolated Basque hamlet in the Spanish Pyrenees. Few outsiders have lived in this remote setting, and even fewer for the 25 years that Howard already has enjoyed. As a single mother bringing up a half-Basque daughter with the help of the local shepherds, she has gained privileged insights into the local culture and Basque mountain life, including its former cross-border smuggling community. Here she set up a tour operator, Pyrenean Experience, which offers an eclectic mix of walking, culture and language holidays. In the Footsteps of Smugglers is her first book for Bradt.

Inhalt

CONTENTS

The Basque Country – a Question of Definition

Basque Words and Spelling

Prologue My Life on a Basque Mountain

PART 1 SCANDINAVIA

Chapter 1 Heading North – The Wheelchair in the Snow

PART 2 THE BASQUE COUNTRY

Chapter 2 Heading South – Alice in Wonderland

Chapter 3 Navarre and the Basques – Heading into the Beyond

The two definitions of the ‘Basque Country’, introduction to Navarre, the institution of the

Basque house, the Basque code of honour (euskaldun hitza), Basque ‘sheepherders’ in America, Guernica, the Spanish Civil War.

Chapter 4 Marketing – Telephones and Witches

Basque politics and ETA (1), Basque flags and nationalism.

Chapter 5 The Baztan Valley – Noble Peasants, Pilgrims and Cider

Baztan Valley lifestyle and landscapes in the sixteenth century, Camino de Santiago, the Codex

Calixtinus, cider.

Chapter 6 Finding the Walks – Chocolate Croissants, Maps and Cold Cups of Tea

Geography and topography, Basque mythology (1) (lamiak), smuggling tales (1), the WWII Comet Line resistance network (1).

Chapter 7 The Guests Arrive – Mutiny in the Kitchen

Basque architecture, Spanish-English cultural differences.

Chapter 8 People – Sheiks and Silver Robots

Chapter 9 A Basque Fiesta – As Good as it Gets

ETA (2), Basque culture and fiestas.

Chapter 10 A New Valley – The Grandmother, the Miller and the Ostrich

Geography and topography.

PART 3 MY BASQUE MOUNTAIN

Chapter 11 A House with a View – The Turtle on the Tap

Basque farms and farming life, Basque house names.

Chapter 12 My Basque Village – The Hello Kitty Fountain

Basque village life (1).

Chapter 13 A Basque Baby – A Fairy Godmother with an Axe

Basque village life (2) and local characters.

Chapter 14 My Neighbours – The Wellington Boot in the Snow

Basque community and solidarity, life under Franco (1), wedding traditions, gravedigging, the annual pig-killing (matanza).

Chapter 15 Local History – Tin Cows and Tadpoles

Spanish Inquisition in the Basque Country, popular witches’ tales, inheritance laws, life under Franco (2).

Chapter 16 The Seasons – British Unpunctuality

Mountain architecture, superstitions (eguzkiloreak), haymaking, hunting, paganism, the winter festival of the Joaldunak.

Chapter 17 Basque Borders and the Comet Line – Eggnogs and Petticoats

Smuggling (2), the Comet Line and resistance (2).

Chapter 18 Mother and Baby – Snakes, Toothpaste Tubes and the Moon

Farming traditions, planting by the moon, traditional Basque food, the Basque language (1).

Chapter 19 Culture Shock – Maggots in the Toy Chest

The local death toll, genetics.

Chapter 20 A Family Business – Hangman and the Unfortunate Word

Chapter 21 The Basque Language – Strawberry Ice Creams and Greedy Pigs

History of the Basque language (2), Basque rhyming bards (bertsolariak), Basque mythology (2).

Chapter 22 The Village Calendar – Wheelbarrow Races and Grumpy Coalmen

Basque schools, Basque sports, local traditions.

Chapter 23 Ituren Church – Stories from Beyond the Grave

Murdered bodies in Ituren graveyard, life under Franco (3).

Chapter 24 House and Home – Mushrooms and Marshmallows

Farming traditions and land rights.

Chapter 25 Gilbert: An Imposter in my Home – Music Boxes and Mountain Savages

Spanish anti-terrorist squads in the Basque country, cultural prejudices.

Chapter 26 Après Gilbert – Two Trees and a Headless Woman

Intercultural exchanges.

Epilogue One Heading North Again

Identity and cultural integration.

Epilogue Two Heading Home
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