62. Summer's here

23rd May 2010. Up early (just after 6am) to savour the peace and quiet of a summer's morning. The window is wide open, the birds are tweeting, a church bell in town is calling the faithful to church and the early morning shadows are slowly sinking down the walls of the big white Basque house across the avenue as the sun climbs up. It's going to be a hot one today.  

I went down to the rowing club yesterday for an outing for the first time in 6 months. It wasn't a long outing - I'd guess only about 8-9k - but as far as my knees were concerned, it went fine. That is, apart from when we returned to the pontoon and I couldn't stand up in the boat to get out! I had to flop out in an undignified heap! We opened up the bar afterwards for an apéro to mark my return.. Some things don't change! It was good to see them all again. Tomorrow I'm signed up for the final day of the Trois Rivieres event organised by the other rowing club in Bayonne - Aviron Bayonnais.

Four of us from our club are going to take a 'yolette' for a 20k row up the Nive as far as Ustaritz. It's my old cycling route so at least I'll know where we are in terms of how much more pain to go.. And, of course, being France, all this will be followed by a 'pot' from midday to 1pm and then lunch till 3pm.. then a wobbly ride home on my bike..

Speaking of which, Madame and I went out this morning on our bikes up the Nive.. With it being such a beautiful morning, all of Bayonne was out there.. There were quite a few boats out on the slow moving green waters of the river too - single sculls, pair scullers, fours and a couple of eights.. in perfect weather. It wasn't all confined to the river - it was also happening on the towpath - there were trendy mamans on  inline skates swishing along at high speed with their babes in hi-tech push chairs, Mums & Dads & offspring various on bikes of all sizes.. walkers, power walkers, joggers, every variety of cyclist, fishermen, etc etc.

I've been reading up on Le Réseau Comète (known as the Comet Line in English) which was set up by Andrée De Jongh, a 24 year old Belgian woman. She established a network that helped hundreds of Allied soldiers and airmen to escape, evade and return safely to the UK. It stretched from Belgium in the north, down through occupied France, over the Pyrenees to Spain and hence to Gibraltar and home. By sheer coincidence, Villa Voisin, one of the safe houses at the south western end of the line in France, is in Anglet which is but a 5 minutes car ride from Piperade Towers and I'll be taking a look at it very shortly.. There were two other safe houses in Bayonne and I'll be looking at those too.

The safe houses in the Pays Basque at the south western end of the Comet Line are shown here:

It struck me forcibly this morning that I wouldn't be experiencing the pleasure of living down here in my retirement were it not for the heroism of those involved in the Comet Line. It would have been all too easy for them to have kept their heads down and just got on with daily life as many chose to. Choosing active participation in the Resistance was an extremely fraught occupation and the penalty for being caught was the absolute certainty of being subjected to barbaric methods of interrogation and punishment of the kind last seen in Europe in medieval times. I have the utmost respect and admiration for the courage of those unsung heroes who stepped forward to fight tyranny when it became a reality in their own country. To all those brave men and women of the Resistance who died lonely deaths in nameless cellars across Europe - we owe an eternal debt of gratitude. 

61. Tourist week

15th May 2010. This week, we had M here for a few days. She's an old friend of Madame's and our first visitor of the year. After the unexpected heat of April (up to 28), the clouds and rain returned and the temps dropped down to 10-12C.. Brrr! We thought M was going to be in for a rough time but the weather gods smiled on her as the skies cleared and on Monday last it was 24.. We gave her our patented lightning 2 day tour of the Pays Basque.. On Monday morning I showed her around the narrow winding streets of Bayonne while Madame was at her painting class. As M's yet another fully paid up member of the Chocaholique Club.. (show me a woman who isn't!) I thought I'd take her to the legendary établissement Cazenave under the arcades in the Rue Port Neuf for a hot chocolat à l'ancienne served in porcelain de Limoges. But, I'd forgotten it was Monday and, like quite a few other shops in town, it was closed. This is what she missed:

Cazenave make their own chocolate and it is really the Rolls Royce of chocolate.

We ended up having a cappucino here - sitting outside the Hotel de Ville in the sunshine.

Following this, we wandered through the quiet Monday morning streets of town, stopping only at the cathedral where we walked around its ancient honeyed stone cloisters before returning home for lunch.. In the afternoon we drove down to St Jean de Luz where someone had clearly just opened a fresh box of pensioners as the streets were full of strolling baby boomers.. We must have reduced the average age of people in town by 10 years.. (maybe!)

The clock was ticking and so we upped sticks and moved up the coast to Biarritz. Walking along the promenade the temperature must have been around 24 at least.. it felt like summer was with us again.

The next day we headed inland under grey skies (ouf!) to show M some of the delights of the Pays Basque such as St Etienne de Baigorry, St Jean Pied de Port and Ainhoa (one of the most beautiful villages in all of France). St Jean Pied de Port is on the pilgrim trail to Santiago de Compostela in north western Spain. After walking through the timeless streets of St Jean Pied de Port, M was kind enough to treat us to lunch at the Hotel Ramuntcho. This is a classic French family-run restaurant and the reasonably priced lunch was delicious. After this we set off for the valley of Les Aldudes (which I've mentioned before). Unfortunately, it was still quite misty up there and the true splendour of the mountain scenery was largely hidden. Ainhoa was next and it's a village which, at the height of the season, is an absolute tourist honey-pot. It's almost a stone's throw from the Spanish border and it seems a long way from Calais! We found an old cafe that looked as if it hadn't been altered for 100 years and had a coffee and found space for a piece of gâteau basque.

  

Here's a classic track from Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton. I don't think she got the recognition her voice deserved.. her voice is pitch perfect and has a clarity all of its own.  

60. Bidarray

29th April 2010. Somehow I don't think that the old English proverb 'Ne'er cast a clout till May be out' can apply here - even though the French have a similar proverb - 'En avril, ne te découvre pas d'un fil; en mai, fais ce qui te plaît'. This translates as 'In April, do not shed a single thread; in May, do as you please'. Yesterday the thermometer (in the shade) on the terrace here showed that it was still 28C at 7pm..

We've been in shorts and t-shirts for a week now. And a couple of days ago we drove out to Bidarray which is a typical rural Basque settlement.

Like nearby Saint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry, it consists largely of a scattering of farmsteads and hamlets. Entry to the village is via the old Pont Noblia, built in the 14th century to allow pilgrims en route to Santiago de Compostella access to the old 12th century priory in Bidarray.

The centre of Bidarray sits on a plateau west of the main road along the valley of the Nive with Spain lying on the other side of the nearest hills 3 or 4 km to the west. The hills were sprinkled with a number of stunningly bright white Basque houses. 

The Church of Notre Dame has perhaps the best situated and best kept terraced churchyard I think either of us had ever seen.. If a graveyard can ever be called a happy place then this was a happy graveyard, with its grandstand view of the magnificent jagged green hills. Not a sad, damp, unkempt and gloomy place at all - but it had the feel of an auditorium in a very grand theatre - with the ancient 12th century church (some of the graves we saw dated back to the 17th century) at the focus of the surrounding green hills and mountains that were dotted with white farmhouses. Resting in peace here takes on a whole new meaning. The sky was a burning blue and the dog found a welcome drink from the churchyard tap. The tables and chairs of a small restaurant beckoned and after looking at the simple menu we decided to have lunch there in the remaining shade.

 

Our restaurant was under the trees just visible to the left of the church.

We could see many interesting looking paths on the surrounding hills and I think it won't be long before we return to explore some more.