Ituren

Although there are extensive pastures, orchards of quince, apple, cherry, fig, and peach trees are common and the mountain slopes are partly covered with oak, chestnut, walnut, beech, and ash.

Ituren is a traditional village built in typical Basque style with large, solid houses with steep-sloping red-tiled roofs and wooden balconies often decorated with geraniums.

Pigs and chickens are also reared on the farms and semi-wild herds of Potxoka horses roam the communally-owned higher mountain slopes.

Other local produce include quince jam; cuajada, also called mamia (sheep’s mild junket); and Patxarran (a sloe berry and aniseed liqueur).

The annual fiesta is held during the third week of July and includes traditional Basque dancing and rural sports competitions.

During the carnival the young men from the village, the Joaldunak, don sheepskins and conical hats with ribbons; they carry horse hair whips and strap large cows bells around their waists which they ring in a deep, rhythmic and atavistic dirge.

The rest of the villagers dress up as demons and witches who scatter in their wake as the carnival symbolises the eternal struggle between the forces of good and evil; light and darkness, winter and spring.