One of the biggest towns in the province of Gipuzkoa, Irun - from where #LaVuelta20 began today - isn't far from the coastal village of Getaria, the birthplace of Juan Sebastian Elcano, the first man – contrary to popular belief – to circumnavigate the globe.

Born in 1486, he took over the command of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition (after the Portuguese's death in the Philippines) and continued with the Trinidad and Victoria ships, engaging in spice trade, before leaving the former behind for repairs and continuing his journey.

In September 1522, 37 months after setting sail, he returned home together with the surviving 17 men of the crew (including four other Basques) and inscribed his name in the history books, a feat or which he was honoured by King Charles l with a coat of arms, a generous pension

and a globe with the Latin words "Primus Circumdedisti Me" (First to Circumnavigate Me). It was a remarkable feat for that age, one that came just two decades before Bernard Etxepare, a priest from Lower Navarre, printed a collection of poems, the first book entirely in Euskera.

Elcano was just one in a long line of Basque explorers. Columbus' Santa Maria and Pinta ships had several Basques among their crews, the Basques contributing also to his later voyages, with men, money and even ships, as was the case of La Vizcaina. One of these navigators was

Juan de la Cosa, who joined Columbus for his first two voyages. He then continued to explore the Carribean basin and at the beginning of the 16th century drew the first map of the world to include the Americas, to this day the only cartographic work made by an eyewitness

of the first voyages of Columbus to the Indies. Another Basque, Sebastian Vizcaino, became famous for being one of the first men to explore the coast of California (starting from 1596), sailing north to the San Francisco Bay and giving many of the sites their modern name,

as well as noting certain ecological features of the Californian coast. But Basques were renowned for their maritime skills since their early days, when the Basque whalers and codmen traveled to the Faeroe Islands in the 9th century, a remarkable 1500-mile long journey,

followed later by expeditions to the western tip of Iceland, which led many to believe that they reached the Americas long before Columbus (and according to some accounts, even before the Vikings).

Some trustworthy reports left by explorers who arrived in North America a few years after John Cabot, in the first decades of the 16th century, talk about meeting tribesmen who spoke Basque or whose language included words that were identical to those of

Euskera, the oldest living language in Europe, whose etymology, particular structure and grammar resistant to change have led many experts to believe it points to a language which has survived to our times from the Stone Age, making it even more remarkable.