The best walks and hikes around Kortezubi

The old brick factory and chimney of Murueta are a vestige of the industrial tradition linked to the Urdaibai marshes, a reminder of the recent past that today blends into the natural landscape of the reserve.

The Urdaibai Bird Center is an internationally renowned observatory that allows visitors to discover the wealth of migratory birds that pass through this reserve throughout the year. In addition to its viewing platforms overlooking the marshes, it features interactive spaces where visitors can learn about the ecological importance of Urdaibai and its role in global migration routes.

Although the current hermitage, located in the Isla Bekoa neighborhood of Gautegiz Arteaga, was built in the 16th century, its head features an inlaid window of clear pre-Romanesque origin from the mid-10th to the 11th century.

The municipality of Gautegiz-Arteaga preserves the only tidal flour mill that once existed on the Urdaibai estuary: the Ozollo Errota tidal mill. Furthermore, the Arteaga mill is the best preserved and the only one that retains most of its facilities. The mill was built around 1683, in the marshland of Laida Beach, in the Kanala area. An area of the marsh was used for its construction, enclosing it with walls, and it was fed by the dam in the rear reservoir. In addition to the milling house, where the drive wheels were installed, the mill has a building at the lowest point of the reservoir. This is a house located on the edge of the estuary, above the same water inlet and outlet. Therefore, the Ozollo Errota tidal mill is the most notable heritage structure in Urdaibai. The mill ceased to operate in the early decades of the 20th century and has been privately owned for several years.

The Oma Forest - Omako basoa in Basque - is also known as the painted forest, the enchanted forest or even the Ibarrola Forest. Its most common name - Oma Forest - refers to the district in which it is located, which belongs to the municipality of Kortezubi. This original work of art was created between 1982 and 1985, when the Basque painter and sculptor Agustín Ibarrola used the trunks of trees as a kind of canvas for a total of 47 images. On them he painted animals, geometric figures and people, or just parts of them, such as eyes and lips. In addition, many of the compositions do not consist of a single tree, but must be viewed in the context of several tree trunks. To do this, you must pay attention to the signs on the ground that tell the viewer where to stand in order to enjoy the whole image.

The Oma Forest - Omako basoa in Basque - is also known as the painted forest, the enchanted forest or even the Ibarrola Forest. Its most common name - Oma Forest - refers to the district in which it is located, which belongs to the municipality of Kortezubi. This original work of art was created between 1982 and 1985, when the Basque painter and sculptor Agustín Ibarrola used the trunks of trees as a kind of canvas for a total of 47 images. On them he painted animals, geometric figures and people, or just parts of them, such as eyes and lips. In addition, many of the compositions do not consist of a single tree, but must be viewed in the context of several tree trunks. To do this, you must pay attention to the signs on the ground that tell the viewer where to stand in order to enjoy the whole image.

In 1982, artist Agustín Ibarrola began painting the pine trees in the forest near his homestead with the intention of using the landscape as a canvas to give continuity to his artistic expression. It is at this moment when he decides to break the law of perspective and transgress the three-dimensionality of a white line until it becomes two-dimensional. From then on, he explored the possibilities offered by the arrangement of the forest trees, playing with the different planes of depth and creating artistic sets composed of human figures, curves or straight lines, and circles of intense colors. The ideas and concepts that it develops become more complex and advances in various directions as the painted forest expands. With the help of two students from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the UPV/EHU, he carried out a large part of the work that was open to the public until 2018, at which time the biological cycle of the forest came to an end. Given the importance that the work had acquired, the Provincial Council of Bizkaia began the process of making the Forest last, for which it had from the first moment the support of the artist who had made clear his desire for the forest to survive. In this way and in order to preserve El Bosque de Oma, the Ibarrola work has been moved to a new location, also recovering original artistic ensembles lost due to felling, attacks and natural tree falls. Today we can enjoy El Bosque de Oma more complete and more faithful to the artist's original idea.

The Forest of Oma is one of the best-known works of the Basque artist Agustín Ibarrola and is an expression of the artistic movement known as Art and Nature, which emerged in the late sixties of the 20th century and whose purpose is to convey artistic work to the natural environment, using the landscape as a framework, support and raw material for the artist. The work, located in the town of Kortezubi (Bizkaia), is made up of several sets of geometric motifs and figures painted on the trunk of radiata pine trees. The use of natural living supports, the play of two-three-dimensionality and the experience of placing the visitor at the center of the work of art through his discovery, as well as the diversity of responses it proposes, make this work a reference of the Art and Nature movement and of Basque Art in particular.