Zeanuri (Ceánuri)

The sheep grid rattles under the hire-car wheels two minutes after leaving the BI-2522, and that’s the first clue you’ve arrived somewhere that checks tyres before Instagram. Zeanuri spreads across a green trough south-west of Bilbao, 45 km by road but a world away from the Guggenheim’s titanium curves. It has neither a sea view nor a ski lift, yet it still ends up on the itineraries of walkers who’d rather share a ridge with cows than with coach parties.

A Parish That Measures Itself in Hay Bales

The village centre is essentially a tight ellipse of stone houses around the 16th-century church of San Martín de Tours. Park by the fronton (the Basque pelota wall doubles as the local noticeboard) and you can walk the perimeter in ten minutes. What you can’t do is rattle off a checklist of “must-see” monuments; Zeanuri’s appeal is cumulative. One front garden bristles with vintage hay forks, the next displays a perfectly polished 1990s Renault 4. An old chap in a berri (traditional beret) cycles past holding two baguettes like handlebars. Nothing is staged, so everything feels alive.

Head north-east and the lanes fracture into a chessboard of farmsteads called caseríos, each labelled with a hand-painted number the postman still recognises. Their solid wooden balconies, called antepechos, were built wide enough to dry maize cobs; nowadays they hold geraniums and the occasional mountain bike. Between these homesteads run stone-walled tracks just wide for a tractor and a confident cow. You will walk more of these byways than signed footpaths, and you will constantly open and shut gates. Leave them as found—livestock have long memories.

The Mountain That Rewrites Timetables

Zeanuri sits at 260 m above sea level, but the municipal boundary shoots up to the 1,481 m summit of Gorbeia, the Basque Country’s most climbed peak. The mountain is visible from almost every meadow, yet getting there takes planning. The standard trailhead at Pagomakurre is a 20-minute drive, followed by a two-hour pull to the cross on top. Weather rolls in fast: sunshine at the trailhead can dissolve into hill fog by the first beech ridge, so waterproofs live in daypacks year-round. If cloud is skimming the tops, opt instead for the circular route around the Itxina massif, a karst plateau where moss swallows sound and every limestone gully looks like yesterday’s. Maps are trustworthy; phone batteries are not—carry paper.

Cyclists rate the road from Zeanuri to the Sanctuary of Arantzazu as one of the quieter Basque ascents. It gains 700 m in 14 km, hair-pinning through beech woods that glow copper in late October. Mountain bikers have a mellower playground at the nearby reservoir of Undurraga, where an undulating 8 km track rings the water. Fishermen cast for carp and the occasional black-bass; families picnic on the dam wall even when the beach itself is more gravel than Caribbean. It’s functional rather than photogenic, and all the better for it.

When Lunch Is Spelt with a “K”

Basque cuisine normally conjures Michelin stars and txikiteo bar crawls. In Zeanuri the rhythm is slower, dictated by farm work and by the letter “k” that keeps popping up on hand-painted signs: arrantzaleak (fishermen) in murals, nekazariak (farmers) on the co-op door. The single restaurant open year-round is the Asador Zeanuri, where a €13 menú del día brings soup, roast lamb, wine and pudding. Vegetarians can swap for bacalao al pil-pil (salt cod emulsified with olive oil and garlic) but don’t expect tofu—this is sheep-and-cider country.

Cider houses open their doors from late January to April. You sit at long tables, pour cloudy natural cider from 1.5 m height to aerate it, and eat char-grilled txuleton steak thick enough to scare a cardiologist. The ritual is theatrical; the taste is sharp enough to make a Somerset cider drinker blink. Book ahead—many sagardotegiak only take same-week reservations by phone, and they close on Mondays just to keep visitors on their toes.

The Idiazabal cheese you’ll taste in these meals is produced a few kilometres away at Quesería Eguzkitza. Email a day ahead and you can watch the rennet being cut, then sample a nutty six-month version that knocks spots off supermarket Manchego. They’ll wrap a wedge in waxed paper for the flight home; declare it, customs officers know the name.

Seasons, Sundays and Sensible Shoes

Spring arrives late at this altitude. May brings cowslips in the valley but snow pockets can still cling to Gorbeia’s northern corrie. Wild daffodils line the lane to the hamlet of Amezcoa, and orchards blaze with white pear blossom—perfect for photography, hopeless for hay-fever sufferers. By July the pastures look English enough to make a Derbyshire hiker homesick until a hoopoe calls overhead. August is surprisingly quiet: Spanish holidaymakers head for the coast, so you’ll meet more local dogs than tourists. Autumn is mushroom season; if you fancy joining the foragers, buy a €5 day permit online and stick to the marked zones. Winter brings proper frost, occasionally snow that closes the high pass to Arantzazu. Chains or 4WD are mandatory then; the council grades roads promptly, but they grade them for tractors.

Shops observe siesta with religious zeal: 14:00–16:30, sometimes 17:00. The Eroski in neighbouring Areatza stays open until 21:30, but it locks its doors on Sunday, so stock up on Saturday night. The last ATM in the valley lives in Zeanuri’s square; it shuts at 14:30 on Saturday and spends Sunday asleep. Contactless works in the hotel, nowhere else.

Where to Sleep Without Surrendering Character

Hotel Spa Etxegana occupies a converted 18th-century coaching inn on a ridge above the village. Rooms keep the original stone, underfloor heating keeps toes happy, and staff speak fluent English—rural Biscay’s answer to a Cotswold retreat. The spa uses local water high in magnesium; perfect for calves that have just met Gorbeia. Expect rates around €120 B&B in low season, €160 in May and October. Cheaper digs are available in farmhouses signed “Baserri Turistikoak”; bathrooms are modern, breakfasts generous, but you share the courtyard with tractors that start at dawn. Bring earplugs or join them for coffee.

The Honest Verdict

Zeanuri will never win a “cutest village” contest because it isn’t trying to enter. Come for the sound of cowbells drifting through beech woods, for the smell of fresh sawdust outside a sawmill, for a pintxo-free evening where conversation is still currency. You will need a car, a phrasebook app and realistic expectations about nightlife. Leave with your boots caked in red soil, your lungs full of atlantic air, and the realisation that not every Basque experience needs a La Rioja price tag. If that sounds like work, pick San Sebastián. If it sounds like freedom, set the sat-nav for Theh-ah-noo-ree and remember to shut the gate.