Izaro: the island of lovers, pirates and seagulls

There are places that accumulate legends the way rocks accumulate barnacles. Izaro is one of them. This small islet in the Cantabrian Sea, visible from Mundaka, Bermeo and Elantxobe, has spent centuries collecting stories of impossible love, English corsairs and territorial disputes settled at dawn on the water.

Izaro Island. Photo: Vicente Muñoz

An impossible love in the fifteenth century

It begins with a love story. In the fifteenth century, a Franciscan monastery occupied the island. One of its young monks fell in love with a girl from Bermeo, on the coast opposite. Every night she would light a candle in her window to signal that everyone was asleep. And every night he would slip into the water and swim to shore.

Until a disapproving relative of the girl moved the candle to a different spot. The monk swam towards the wrong place and drowned against the rocks. His beloved, upon hearing the news, threw herself from a cliff to share his fate. Romeo and Juliet, but on the Cantabrian Sea.

The Kiss, by Gustav Klimt

The bodies of the two young lovers, so the legend goes, were devoured by seagulls. Today those same seagulls — along with cormorants and little egrets — are the only inhabitants of Izaro. There were once rabbits too, brought by the monks themselves for sustenance, and even sheep, in the days when the island was leased out for grazing.


Sir Francis Drake — or perhaps not

The second legend of Izaro has a protagonist well known to English-speaking readers: Sir Francis Drake, the celebrated English privateer. According to local tradition, it was Drake who sacked the Franciscan monastery in the sixteenth century, putting an end to the monks' presence on the island.

The problem is that historians have checked the dates and concluded that Drake could not plausibly have been there. The most likely culprits were pirates — less famous but equally destructive — who brought the monastery to ruin. The legend, however, prefers Drake. And who can blame it.


The Madalenas festival: when hundreds of boats surround the island

Izaro is not only legend — it is also a territorial dispute resolved with typically Basque elegance. For centuries, the neighbouring towns of Bermeo and Mundaka argued over ownership of the island. The controversy was settled the only way it could be settled in the Basque Country: with a rowing race at dawn. Bermeo won. Elantxobe, which had also pressed its claim at some point, served as referee.

To mark that victory — or that peace — a festival was born that takes place every year on 22 July, the feast day of Saint Mary Magdalene. Hundreds of boats set out from Bermeo and circle the island of Izaro. The mayor of Bermeo, in the presence of his counterparts from Elantxobe and Mundaka, throws a roof tile into the sea, symbolically renewing the town's ownership of the island. This is the Madalenas festival.


There is a dress code: the arrantzale shirt — the traditional Basque fisherman's shirt — a festival scarf around the neck, and plenty of energy for the biribilketa, a traditional Basque dance in which everyone joins hands and spins in circles. The celebrations go on until dark. Some last longer. Out there in front of Izaro.

Elantxobe at night. Photo MyBilbaoBizkaiao

Getting there

Izaro can be seen from the shore — from Mundaka, from Bermeo, from Elantxobe, or from the train that connects Bilbao with these coastal towns of Bizkaia, one of the most beautiful rail journeys in northern Spain. 

If you want to explore this stretch of coastline in depth — Bermeo, Mundaka, Gaztelugatxe and the Basque wine country — this full-day tour from Bilbao is an excellent way to take it all in.

The train with Izaro in the background

A small island, visible from the coast, with no inhabitants but the seagulls. And yet full of history, legend and life. That is Izaro.


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