The Gastronomy environment
Cuisine
BASQUE COUNTRY is known for its cuisine. It is the territory with a higher concentration of Michelin Star awarded restaurants. It is usual to meet up in one of the more than 5.000 gastronomic societies, with friends and family, to enjoy cooking and eating together.
ORIO, being the fishing town it is, is well known for its fish grills. Bream cooked in the traditional Orio style is the most requested fish, and many people come to town only to taste the dish itself.
Culture
Euskera (Basque) is the language used for communication among basque people. It might be one of the most economically developed territories of Spain, but it has maintained its culture and its language; both stemming from one of the oldest tribes of Europe.
Sport
Rural sports are rooted in the old trades: cutting wood for the woodsmen, lifting stones for the stonemasons, or rowing for the whale hunters.
ORIO, like other fishing towns of the Cantabrian sea, relied strongly on whale fishing. A lot of effort was put into preparing men to row with great strength on the whaler ships. Legend has it that the last whale fished in the Cantabrian sea was captured near Orio in the year 1901. Nowadays, rowing has become a sport for both men and women to compete in, regardless of age; Orio’s ship crew is the most awarded crew of all of the ones in Spain.