Traditional Basque sword dance, Bilbao, Spain
I find that travel writing is a big source of story ideas -- if I don't find direct suggestions for plots, I at least learn of all manner of wonderful cultures and customs that I can incorporate into my fiction. This image is from a slideshow for a recent Slate series of travel articles about the Basque country (roughly, the parts of Spain and France near the southern shores of the Bay of Biscay). The most interesting article, and set of pictures, were from the fourth day of the trip to Basque country, but they're rather gruesome because they focus on the bullfight. Linguistic-minded readers will be interested in the Day Two report, which focuses on Euskara, the Basque language that seems totally out of place in Europe, with its lack of basis in the Romance or the Teutonic languages.
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