Other great places

Tolosa

Tolosa

Josu Goñi Etxabe, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

If you are planning on travelling between San Sebastian and Pamplona, then why not make a detour via Tolosa?

Can while away an hour or two wandering around the historic quarter with it's neat Basque townhouses and the odd grand pile like the high-gothic church of Santa María which leads to the covered market place for rainy days.

The crochet (and knitting) craze has hit Tolosa, thanks in large part to Maria who runs the knitting shop Eskuz . On nice days, you'll find her and her companions knitting sitting out under their new canopy clicking their needles and planning what to cover next.

The market leads to the River Oria which was in bad shape during 20th Century thanks to the town's papermills and over-easy environmental laws, but that has now largely gone and the water that wends its way to the Bay of Biscay now has trout.

The paper industry has left one thing. Expertise. The family-firm Pasaban , which switched to making specialist machinery for paper and carboard exports machines and knowhow all over the globe. So whether you're eating out of a cardboard food box in Italy , or changing Danish Kronor into Lebanese Pounds , it's the people making machines here you have to thank.

While making paper has been the town's licence to print money, it's bean counting, or more rather, bean appreciation that matters.

Workers elsewhere in the world are breadwinners but around here they are the people who "take home the beans".

The Brotherhood of the Bean are proud evangelists for making the most of Tolosa bean - a variety of pinto bean. There's a festival each November where large steaming pots of bean stew that you can sample for yourself.

But if like Pythagoras , you have a bit of a bean aversion, but want to go to a festival, why not try the international puppet festival or just visit the puppet theatre ?

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