Ibilaldia (Basque: Ibilaldia), meaning trip, journey, or march in English, is a festival organized every year the last Sunday of May or first of June to help the ikastolak (schools in the Basque language) in Biscay, Basque Country in Spain.
Ibilaldia is essentially a volunteer walk around a circuit of 5-10 kilometers, that is surrounded by food stands and entertainment, and walkers sometimes make the walk in support of an organization. The money they collect it is used to help the Basque schools in the province of Biscay. It is celebrated too to reinforce Basque culture and language. As a solidary fest, everything is organized by the Ikastolas. Each year a different village is the organizer. Parents, teachers and students help to have everything prepared for the main day.
History
Ibilaldia festival held in Biscay, 2011
At the end of the 1970s the movement created to promote the use of Basque language in schools grew a lot and started to be structured. The festival of Ibilaldia was born in 1978 in Getxo promoted by this general context of creation of new ikastolas. From 1981 it became an annual public event organized in these villages:
Guernica, officially Gernika in Basque, is a town in the province of Biscay, in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, Spain. The town of Guernica is one part of the municipality of Gernika-Lumo, whose population is 16,224 as of 2009.
Biscay or Bizkaia, is a province of the Basque Autonomous Community, heir of the ancient Lordship of Biscay, lying on the south shore of the eponymous bay. The capital and largest city is Bilbao.
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The Diocese of Bilbao is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church located in the city of Bilbao and Province of Biscay in Northern Spain. It is part of the ecclesiastical province of Burgos.
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The Bilbao Metropolitan Area is the metropolitan area or continuous urban area based around the city of Bilbao, in the Basque Country, Spain. It comprises the city of Bilbao, the 25 municipalities that make the comarca of Greater Bilbao plus ten other surrounding municipalities, all of them in the province of Biscay.
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Ferrocarriles Vascongados was a railway company in the Basque Country, Spain; founded in 1906 as the merger of three railway companies. It operated the Bilbao-San Sebastián line, as well as the Elorrio branch and the Deba railway. FEVE took over its operations in 1972, which in 1982 were transferred to the new company Basque Railways. Ferrocarriles Vascongados was dissolved in 1995, after more than two decades without activity.
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