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.

59. Haunting memories

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.

58. Practising for Summer

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!