From the sublime viewpoints above San Sebastián in the Basque Country, a hiker can see one of the world’s oldest, most romantic, most biblical of paths. The Camino de Santiago pilgrimage passes this way, and the Homerian traverse to Saint James’ tomb in the far western corner of northern Spain is well-trodden, proselytising many and capturing minds for centuries.
Each year, long-distance hikers and pilgrims come here in their hundreds of thousands, but I was not one of them. Instead of the cracked valleys winding towards churches, my destination was somewhere else entirely. A strange, uninhabited place called Pheasant Island.
Looking to understand Spain’s Basque Country better, I accidentally stumbled upon the two-acre sliver of land while browsing through illustrated maps of the Western Pyrenees. Sheltered in the borderlands between Hendaye, France, and Irun, Spain, on the Bidasoa river flowing to the Bay of Biscay, the perplexing island is presided over by each nation for six months in turn and is a historical record of the rivalry between the countries.
Border irregularities are found throughout Europe – and the world – but a 200m-long island that swaps countries biannually is unfathomably odd. And few, curiously, know much about Pheasant Island at all.