"Capital of the Basque Country" a Vitoria Travel Page by illumina

I was lucky enough to live in Vitoria for just over two months, as I got a job digging on a medieval site nearby. I had a great time, visited lots of lovely places, and above all made some wonderful friends. I long to go back!

We spent 9 weeks digging at a site called Zaballa, close to Nanclares de la Oca about 10km to the south of Vitoria. On one part of the site we excavated a number of very large pits, the walls of a substantial building, and a small cemetery; on the other part, we found terracing on the side of the hill with more walls, and a ditch, some pits, postholes and further walls in the valley bottom.

We enjoyed ourselves at the weekends by travelling around the area as much as we could, so we had visits to Pamplona, Santander, San Sebastian, and Madrid and Toledo on the long weekend created by the national holiday of the 25th July. We were also taken on trips to Laguardia / La Rioja, and Castro Urdiales / San Juan de Gaztelugatxe by some of our colleagues.

Sadly we had to leave Vitoria when the site was finished, but we consoled ourselves by travelling back to the UK overland rather than flying. We stopped off at a number of places, starting with Zaragoza...