Elcano, the first sailor to sail around the world

Four people from Getaria “kidnapped” in 1978 the statue of Juan Sebastián Elcano, located next to the old hermitage on the Paseo Nuevo in San Sebastian, to take it to your town.

The statue was placed in 1861 in Getaria, but in 1940 during the civil war, it was moved to Donostia.

The initial idea was to melt it to make ammunition, but since it was hollow, it was forgotten for a long time in a warehouse, until someone thought of placing it next to the hermitage on the new promenade.

For many years it was thought that one day it would have to return to Getaria, until on May 28, three people from Getaria with a small truck loaded the statue and returned it definitively to their town.

Juan Sebastián Elcano, was born in Getaria, around the year 1476, from a very young age he was an expert sailor. In 1519 he enrolled in the expedition led by Fernando de Magallanes, to discover a route to the East Indies, and upon his death he took command, arriving in Seville in 1522 and becoming the first sailor to circumnavigate the world.