The "millenary" chestnut trees of Apellániz. Izki

Planting, grafting, pruning and harvesting, learning how to manage chestnut trees for their protection and conservation.

Apellániz is located in the Izki Natural Park, the heart and lungs of Montaña Alavesa. In 13 of its 13 hectares grows the best preserved chestnut grove in the Basque Country. Through this experience we will visit the chestnut trees -some of them millenary-, in a magical place, full of stories and legends, mythological beings and a great diversity of flora and fauna. We will carry out planting, grafting, pruning and harvesting work, learning how to manage the chestnut grove for its protection and conservation.
In its 1,500 hectares of forest oak, beech and heather, but if there is a charismatic tree and loved by its inhabitants that is the chestnut tree. With 13 hectares in which live 1,100 chestnut trees scattered in a strip that delimits the village on its western side, they protect it from the wind and offer shade and shelter.

In a fair that takes place annually in mid-October, its people honor these giants with whom they have lived together since time immemorial. Centenary trees, even millenary, of more than eleven meters of circumference are majestic in any of the roads that from Apellániz go into the forest.

It is especially in autumn when these places offer us their best clothes. A palette of ochre colors that start from greens, followed by yellows, oranges, reds to reach the browns. An explosion of shades that intoxicate the eyes of the observer who looks in silence.

Without forgetting the culinary delicacy they offer us: chestnuts, whose aromas while roasting transport us to our tenderest childhood evoking sensations and memories difficult to describe in words, but always pleasant and with a certain longing.

The great majority of all this work is carried out by the people of Apellániz, who get together when the chestnut grove demands it and carry out the maintenance work, all in a great atmosphere, as their effort is matched by the evolution of the chestnut grove. Always culminated in the heat of a fire and a good lunch that lasts until the afternoon.

A day in which the neighbors and the neighbors of Apellániz are proud to make known their chestnut grove, their culture, their customs, their traditions, the values that their ancestors knew how to acquire, to take care, to conserve and to transmit. A legacy that they are proud to have rescued, valued and transmitted. A knowledge that other communities can use to recover that ancestral heritage that was so hard to achieve, that is also hard to lose and that is worthwhile because it creates links, unions and synergies that go beyond the borders of our environments.