his trip, sponsored by the Boise State Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and organized by Travel Fever Tours, will explore the roots of the Basque culture in Idaho by visiting the Basque region in Spain.

Participants will visit the areas where Idaho’s Basque population originated from in Spain, gaining an insider’s view of:

• Basque history up to the mid-1800s when many Basque began leaving for the US
• The economic and social factors that prompted Basque emigration
• The Basque’s recent history and the independence movements under Franco
• The lives of the families and friends that were left behind in Spain; and
• A look at the lives of people who have returned from the US to the Basque region.

While the goal of this trip is to learn, you will not have a stream of university lectures. Along the way, the tour will focus on:

• Meeting and interacting with people in the Basque region
• Sampling the renowned Basque cuisine; and
• Learning about current culture in the Basque region
• Visiting many beautiful cities and villages and seeing lovely places.

The trip will begin in Bilbao, a former industrial and shipping hub for the Basque region, and now a growing tourist attraction with its iconic Guggenheim Museum. We will then move into smaller locations, explore Pamplona and its surroundings, and finish in Lekeitio,a small fishing town on the northern Atlantic coast. Lekeitio is directly in the area from where many of the Boise Basque originated.