8th June 2010. Another trip away coming up at the weekend. Off to link up with Madame's brother who's renting a place near Perpignan for a few weeks then we're going to take a leisurely swing through the south of France. It's the first real break we've had in 5 years or so and we've planned an itinerary that sounds wonderful. We'll then continue on up to the Jura region to see Madame's last remaining auntie and uncle there and also a cousin in Belfort before returning to the south west..
10th June 2010. Something just reminded me of this song by Syreeta.. it's another one of those songs that will stay in your head all day..
To finish up with, some atmospheric 'bluesy' slide guitar - "Feelin' bad blues" - by Ry Cooder (from the film "Crossroads"):
3rd June 2010. Back home again after a long weekend away. Last Friday we drove up to Rouen - some 840-odd kms away - in northern France for a reunion weekend with Madame's former colleagues from her old school in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
The plan was for everyone to meet up outside the Tourist Office (below) at 10am on the Saturday so, as we'd arrived in good time on the Friday, we had plenty of time after breakfast to wander around the old half-timbered centre of Rouen:
We met up with our party at the appointed hour and of course the first item on the agenda was a spirited round of cheek-kissing (for the nanas) and hand-shaking (for the mecs!)..
As we saw it..
.. and as Monet saw it.
We started off with a guided tour of the cathedral - and I was pleased to find I was able to follow our guide's commentary without too much difficulty. While she was an enthusiastic fount of historical and architectural knowledge, I'm ashamed to admit that after a while I felt my eyes start to glaze over and my mind wander and, looking around, I'm happy to report that I wasn't the only one!
Lunch couldn't come soon enough and we found ourselves in a fifties retro restaurant - well chosen by the organisers.
In the afternoon we visited the Church of St Jeanne d'Arc, who remains an extremely potent symbol in France. At moments of high domestic tension, Madame will occasionally remind me of the fact that Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake by the English (aka my cue to wind my neck in!). The brutal architecture of the church falls into the category of Love it or Hate it. Resembling nothing more than some vast grey slate-covered armadillo, it sprawls across the ancient market square in true shock-horror style (maybe that's the point) and to me it's a clumsy attempt to symbolise in stone the funeral pyre. I found the architecture of the building too intrusive, too self-conscious. This is the kindest photo I can find of it (others here):
Eglise Ste Jeanne d'Arc
In the evening we had dinner at an excellent restaurant in the market square and after that bed couldn't come soon enough!
On Sunday morning we visited a well restored old church before lunch beckoned.. Tiring all this culture! Finally we visited the Museum of Wrought Iron in Rouen which was truly fascinating.. The others all left at this point to return home while we stayed an extra night as we were heading down on the Monday to La Bernerie en Retz which lies on the coast to the south west of Nantes to stay with our friends A & J-C for a couple of nights.. We had some great walks along the sea shore and around Pornic which is just a few kms up the coast. By now we were missing our pooch and we were also missing home.
Pornic
We set off for Bayonne on Wednesday. It's always a pleasure to be heading south when we're going home instead of that depressing drive up to Calais and beyond! We stopped off at the kennel to pick up Chibby (our cocker spaniel) who was beside himself to see us again.. No surprises there!
4th June 2010. Our tame saxophonist is back in town.. He looks pretty cool as he stands there on a corner with his battered sax and his straw hat opposite the War Memorial playing the same little riff ad infinitum. I think if I lived in the flats above him I'd be going mental though as he doesn't seem to tire of endlessly playing his limited 15 second repertoire..
5th June 2010. Down to the rowing club this morning for an outing. I think we did about 10-12km on a pretty hot morning so I was glad to return to the pontoon. There's a new girl member at the club - from Brazil - and she offered us all a Brazilian cocktail known as a Caipirinha:
Her recipe calls for this fresh, exotic cocktail to be made with cachaça*, sugar cane syrup, a mint leaf and crushed limes, served over ice. It is always muddled (crushed with a masher or the blunt end of a wooden spoon). In this clip, they use sugar instead of sugar cane syrup but no mint leaf.. I liked it the way I had it - with the mint leaf - but I'm open to offers!
Intriguing taste - sweet, sour, bitter all at the same time and excellent for quenching the thirst on a hot day.. The second one tastes even better! It's a loong time since I've enjoyed a drink as much as this one. Note to self: remember to buy some cachaça when next in Spain..
25th May 2010. Yesterday morning I found my way down to the clubhouse of Aviron Bayonnais, the other rowing club situated in the heart of Bayonne on the Nive. I'd signed up to row on the final day of their annual Trois Rivières event during which rowers tackle the Gave, the Adour and the Nive over a 3 day period - starting with 22kms on the Saturday, then 32km (ouch!) on the Sunday, followed by the final 20km flog up and down the Nive on the Monday. Clubs from all over France were represented - the furthest having travelled from Metz, situated just a few km from the Franco-German border in the north east..! I'd only returned to rowing 2 days before with a short outing on the Saturday having had an enforced 6 month break due to a few knee problems so yesterday's outing was still by way of a refresher (ahem!).
The club was a hive of activity as the rowers gathered together and boats were prepared to be put in the water. There must have been 20 or 30 'fours' and the chaos at the start was in true anarchic French style! The two of us from my club were teamed up with a couple from Avignon and it worked quite well.
While I really enjoy rowing on the wide open spaces of the mighty Adour (above), it has to be said that the winding Nive(below) is far more picturesque.. The town of Bayonne is built around the confluence of the two rivers.
This chap has the right idea..!
We did about 20km in the scorching heat (three times the Oxford & Cambridge Boat Race distance) - think it must have been about 25C or more - and I finished up ab-so-lute-ly whacked from the heat and with blisters all over my unhardened hands.. I think I may have been overly ambitious for my come-back row! But fortunately - France being France - things didn't stop there..!
After pulling all the boats back out of the water and rinsing them off, we returned to the clubhouse for a welcome shower and change and then it was upstairs to the stylish bar/restaurant (below) that overlooked the river.. for an 'apero'.. (that's Bayonne Cathedral in the background) This was the first time I'd been in a rowing club anywhere where there was a dedicated bar just for serving champagne.. in addition to the more usual bar.
The first cold beer was a life-saver.. so I had a couple more just to be on the safe side.. After a short speech by Gérard (le très génial responsable), who'd organised everything all so well, a Basque male voice choir sang some stirring Basque songs which had us all on our feet and then it was time for another apero which the club offered to all 120 of us - champagne..! (only in France!) Then the serious business of the day started - it was time to eat. Between courses, the choir kept us entertained with some more marvellous singing and all too soon it was 3.30 and time to disperse..
I'm still shattered.. I'm supposed to be rowing again this evening but I still haven't decided on that yet..
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.
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.
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.
25th April 2010. On my way into town to buy a baguette just before 11 o'clock this morning I noticed some activity around the Monument aux Morts (War Memorial) in the centre of Bayonne. This is a massive stone edifice that was built into the old ramparts at the conclusion of the "War to end all Wars". A large slice of a generation of Bayonne's male population was wiped out during the Great War of 1914-18 and the names of all 771 of the fallen (Bayonne's population at that time was 28,000) were incised into the pale stone. A realist somewhere in the Town Hall had thoughtfully specified that the design of the monument should have space to spare and this has gradually filled up over the years with names from other conflicts - WWII, Indo-China, Algeria and the first Gulf War. There were some tricolours fluttering in the cool breeze and a number of elderly ex-servicemen chatting in their regimental berets and be-medalled blazers, holding their revered standards proudly.
I asked the person who was setting up the sound system what the ceremony was about and he told me it was the 65th anniversary of the end of the Nazi concentration camps and also La Journée Nationale de la Déportation. The deportations of French Jews, résistants, gypsies and political prisoners conducted under the auspices of the infamous Hitlerian Nacht und Nebel decree during the Occupation is still a tragic and sensitive chapter in French history.
As the time approached 11am, various military personnel arrived as did the energetic mayor and a few civic dignatories. The cathedral bells tolled the hour, a small band made a fanfare and everyone took their positions. A lady made a speech that I was able to follow and after the "Marseillaise" was played, the VIPs stepped forward to lay their wreaths and shake the hands of the old soldiers. Everybody stood still while the "Marseillaise" was played again apart from one or two unthinking members of the public who just walked by unconcernedly. And that was it.
This next clip is guaranteed to bring you out in goose pimples - regardless of your nationality!
27th April 2010. I was out on the terrace earlier this afternoon enjoying the sun (25°) and I was musing on the randomness of life. Madame's father had been a bomber pilot and flew for the Free French in North Africa after the fall of France in June 1940.
His squadron re-formed there and was re-equipped with the Martin Marauder B-26. Here's a rare image of Marauders in Free French markings.
And, luckily for him, Madame et moi, he was one of the very few on his squadron to survive the war.
Friday, 23rd April 2010. Here's another one of those songs that are so familiar - yet until this evening I didn't know what the song was called or who the singer was.. This is a song that is redolent of a certain era in France.. it's called "L'été indien" and it was recorded in 1975 by Joe Dassin.. Whenever I hear it, it reminds me of those golden days of summer when we'd finally be heading south west on our way down to the Pays Basque after another long English winter.. It's one of those "dabba dabba dab" songs (like the themes from "A Man and a Woman" and "Vivre pour vivre") that you'll be singing for the rest of the day!
Earlier this week we visited our friends M & P up in Lacanau-Océan. It's on the sandy Atlantic coast midway between the Pointe de Grave (the tip of land at the end of the Gironde estuary) and Arcachon to the south.. On the map (right) it's where the red road hits the sea. The access road to it from the autoroute was arrow straight through the endless pine forests that make up much of the south westerly coast. M & P have a maison secondaire set in pine woods from which a constant cloud of yellow pollen was drifting. We'd struck lucky with the weather.. the temp was up around 25 and it may even have crawled up another couple of degrees by the mid afternoon.. Lacanau-Océan is probably the closest resort to Bordeaux and it was clear that tourism here is a huge industry. There was everything for the complete family holiday and the summer traffic during the peak season must be unimaginable. P fired up his plancha and he prepared a delicious lunch of salmon steaks.. After this, we looked at a couple of neighbouring golf courses which were beautifully maintained before heading down the the bustle of the sea front. Before long it was time to return south as we were getting Pays Basque withdrawal symptoms!
