Altzo (Alzo)

The church bell tolls twelve, yet only three cars pass the parish of San Martín de Tours in the next half-hour. One stops outside the frontón; the driver leans out to greet an elderly man in beret and carpenter’s apron, exchanging a sentence in crisp Basque before both disappear in opposite directions. No café terrace, no souvenir rack, no coach park—just stone, timber and the sound of cattle grids clanking shut across the lane. Welcome to Altzo, a municipality that refuses to behave like a single village however hard the map tries to pin it down.

Scattered Houses, Shared Valley

Administratively Altzo exists; geographically it dissolves into a mosaic of hamlets—Alzola, Osinaga, Zubillaga—strung along ridges that slide towards the Oria basin. Dry-stone walls parcel the slopes into handkerchief meadows, each with its own caserío, apple trees and a dog that pretends to mind its own business. The layout is deliberate: medieval settlers preferred south-facing plots above flood level, close enough to walk to mass yet far enough to keep the smell of manure away from the kitchen. The pattern survives, so exploring means driving, cycling or walking the lattice of lanes that dip and climb 200 m without warning.

Start at the church precinct. San Martín de Tours shares its name with thousands across Christendom, but this one is rooted in the 12th century, enlarged in the 16th, patched again in the 19th after a fire. The portal is pure Romanesque; step inside and the nave widens abruptly, a tell-tale sign that the parish outgrew its shoes when silver from the Indies poured through nearby Tolosa. Retablos are folk-Gothic, gold leaf mostly gone, colours muted by incense and damp. You will be finished in ten minutes—there is no ticket desk, no audio guide, only a box for coins and a polite notice asking men to remove their berets.

From the porch three footpaths radiate. The widest, signed “Amezcoa 8 km”, is an old drove road still used to move sheep to summer pastures. A 45-minute out-and-back on this track gives you the essence: red-chalk soil, hawthorn hedges, views west to the limestone wall of Aizkorri-Aratz Natural Park. After rain the path turns slick as soap; boots with tread are advisable, or stick to the asphalt loop past the biodynamic farm at Borda Zaharra where cider apples are pressed in October and sold by the five-litre flagon for €9.

Gradient and Gravity

Road cyclists speak of Altzo in the same breath as leg-cramp. The province’s planners drew a ruler-straight N-1 along the valley floor, then remembered the villages and flung secondary roads up the escarpment like afterthoughts. The ascent from Tolosa covers 6 km with an average of 7 %, ramps of 12 % around the hamlet of Iturriotz. Traffic is thin, tarmac reasonable, but there is no café at the top to reward the climb—just a cattle grid and a view that makes you forget your complaining thighs. Mountain bikers find firmer entertainment on the forest track to Arlaban pass, though be prepared to push: erosion gutters deep enough to swallow a front wheel appear without notice.

If two wheels sound like penance, walking requires less masochism. A 7 km circuit links the lower neighbourhoods of Osinaga and Zubillaga on farm tracks, never far from a water trough or a stone bench placed by some forgotten benefactor. Spring brings meadows quilted with buttercups and the low hum of Corsican bees introduced to pollinate local chestnut. Autumn reverses the palette to bronze, the air sharp enough to make second helpings of tolosa beans taste like virtue. Summer walks demand an early start: though the altitude is only 300 m above sea level, humidity rising from the Oria turns the lanes into saunas by eleven. Winter, conversely, is honest: bare branches expose hawk flights, and when an Atlantic front rolls in the valley fills with cloud so thick you can hear cowbells but not see the beasts.

Eating, or Not

Altzo has no restaurant row. One txoko (private gastronomic society) opens its doors to outsiders on the feast of San Blas (3 Feb) for a charity lunch of garlic soup, salt cod and blood sausage; tickets go on sale at the town hall a week earlier and sell out by Thursday. The rest of the year you picnic or drive. Tolosa, ten minutes down the hill, provides the nearest reliable menu: try Casa Julián for a chuleta that arrives still whispering to the flames, or Taba for pintxos of wild mushroom and Idiazabal foam. If you must eat inside the municipality, the farm shop at Borda Zaharra stocks chilled cider, walnuts and cheese made the previous morning—take a baguette from Tolosa first or you will be scooping curds with your fingers.

When the Valley Parties

Feast days here are less parade, more family reunion. San Martín (weekend nearest 11 Nov) begins with a sung mass in Basque, followed by a txistorra sandwich and a glass of hot agrimony wine outside the church. Children chase a wooden goose slung across the frontón; stakes are cents rather than euros and nobody remembers who won. In mid-August the young organise their own binge—foam machine, sound system powered by a tractor generator, bouncy castle lashed to hay bales. Outsiders are welcome but anonymity is impossible; buy a drink and someone will ask whose cousin you are. The smallest gathering is San Blas in February: priest blesses coloured ribbons to be tied around throats against colds, then everyone piles into cars for the short drive to the cider house season in nearby Astigarraga.

Getting Here, Getting Round, Getting Lost

San Sebastián is 33 km north-west, Bilbao 95 km west. A car is almost compulsory: Euskotren serves Tolosa every thirty minutes but the onward bus to Altzo is school-day only and finishes at 15:00. The regional road GI-213 climbs from Tolosa in tight S-bends; fog can drop visibility to twenty metres between November and March. Parking is informal—pull off where the verge widens, avoiding field entrances that farmers need at dawn. Phone coverage is patchy on the northern slopes: download an offline map or risk discovering that Google thinks you are in a field of turnips.

Worth the Detour?

Altzo will never anchor a fortnight’s holiday. It offers no beach, no art gallery, no Michelin star—deliberately. What it does provide is a crash course in how rural Gipuzkoa functions when coaches are elsewhere. Spend two hours and you will leave with mud on your shoes, the smell of broom in your nostrils and a baffling desire to buy a scythe. Stay all day and you may end up volunteering to move a flock of sheep, which is when you realise the valley has achieved its aim: making the visitor part of the scatter, not just the spectator.