Urbasa

According to archaeological findings, records of human presence in the beautiful Urbasa range, now a Natural Park, date back as far as 100,000 years before present. Mainly covered as it was by dense beech woods and with just few water springs and no rivers in its surface due to the karstic nature of the territory, it is not surprising the lack of any considerable urban developments here, the most worth noting remains being several megalithic monuments such as dolmens. Later on, it has been mainly inhabited by shepherds and their flocks.

Idyllic as the place may look, in more recent times, particularly during the first months of the Spanish Civil War, a  hard to precise number of people were killed here, and their bodies made to disappear by throwing them in the many pits and shafts that can be found around, or off the top of cliffs like this one, now known as, by unknown reasons, Balcón de Pilatos.

Being a cowardly panographer I did not risk it any further on to the border of the cliff, so my photograph does not fully depict nor convey the dizziness of its impressive 300 meters high fall, in the middle of which the Urederra river springs. According to witnesses at the time, some of the people before mentioned were thrown down alive. (For more information on this matter, follow this link. It's in Spanish: just a click away on your favourite translate app).

I had taken a number of panoramas from Urbasa during the last two decades, the first ones dating back to 2005, that I have uploaded now here. It may be worth noting that they were shot with 4 different cameras (starting with the Nikon D70 and its then impressive 5 Mpx , followed by the D200, D300 and D800) and two lenses (Nikkor 10'5 and Nikkor 16 mm). The views are rather redundant. Some pics from the beautiful Monastery of Iranzu (XIIth century on) are also included, partly because it lies down on the south-east border of Urbasa and partly because it's almost 5 years that they  were stored, forgotten and unshared, in one of my drives. Although not great stuff, just take a look at them and visit the place if you like it.

Europe / Spain

Lat: 42° 48' 12" N
Long: 3° 9' 16" W

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: Medium. Nearby, but not to the last decimal.

D800, monopod, homemade panohead, PTGui Pro, NX Studio, PS