Pasaia

Pasaia is one of the most transparent toponyms on the Camino del Norte: it names the trade. The enclosed bay between two vertical cliffs —⁠San Pedro to the south, San Juan to the north⁠— was for centuries a fishing and whaling port, separated from the open sea by a strait barely 200 metres wide. But the two facing villages were unconnected by land: only a pasaia, a rowing or sailing boat, linked them. Victor Hugo lived here for some months in 1843 and described the crossing in his travel diary. The boat still runs today as it did then: departures every fifteen minutes, eighty cents, ninety seconds of crossing. The toponym and the trade coincide entirely. The Castilian form Pasajes, official until 1980, was replaced by the Basque Pasaia in the democratic transition.