A bit further inland and closer to the mountains is St Jean Pied de Port, on one of the major pilgrim routes to Santiago de Compostela in north west Spain. Our own village is on the Chemin de Piemont Pyreneen (not shown on map) which links up with the main inland route in Spain.
Taken from the internet and I can't remember whose picture it is to credit, so apologies if it is yours.
One of my cousins from New Zealand came over to do this route from St Jean P de P about six or seven years ago. He enjoyed his experience apart from the
period he spent in hospital with Legionnaires' Disease which he picked up from one of the hostels!!! Thankfully he recovered fine and was able to continue on his journey and finish the pilgrimage. It's certainly tough starting from France as you have the hike over the Pyrenees to contend with first, when you are not necessarily at your fittest! Rather him than me. 😀
Me beside the River Nive. We are still in the Basque country here though I think towards the edge of it. This lovely town was classified as one of the 'Most Beautiful Villages in France' in 2016.
You can open up this pic to read some info about the history of the pilgrim route of Saint Jacques de Compostelle, as it is called in French.
Rue de la Citadelle is the main street in the old part of town which leads to a citadelle at the top - K and I have visited in the past but we didn't on this day.
There are some gorgeous old houses on this road; this one is engraved with the name of the couple who I imagine built (or had built) the house, in 1720.
This house is dated 1510.
I remember this house from before, but because the streets are so narrow you can't stand back far enough to get it all in one photo, as I wanted to cover as many of the plants as possible.
Finally, a view from the top of the town. Yet more dismal weather! Still, it was lovely to see everywhere looking so green and lush.
St Jean de Luz
Just along the coast from Hendaye is the pretty town of St Jean de Luz. We've been here several times before but it's still lovely to be back in the Basque country, plus I wanted my brother to see it.
There's a lovely beach here, but with such gloomy weather it's not surprising it was so empty! It seemed like most days of our holiday, the weather changed.
I remember this building from before as it's so unusual. I had to crop it like this as there were motorbikes all parked up messily but it's on the junction of two streets and is quite narrow at this end as it is a wedge shaped building. The side you can see is sea facing so I bet the apartments would be rather expensive!
There were many pedestrianised streets full of shops. I really enjoy having a browse through places like this, looking in the shop windows. We do buy some tourist stuff as well as I like getting an occasional fridge magnet or mug or something from our travels. Also Keith looks at hats and I look at handbags. 😀
A cookie shop!
Now do you understand why I love the Basque architecture? Most houses have these wooden decorations on the facades, most are this red colour but some are green, which with white are the colours of the Basque flag.
This colour is actually called Basque Red when it comes to paint.
Espelette
In the afternoon we went to Espelette, a village which is the centre of the Basque chilli growing region. Many houses are decorated with strings of the chillies, like this hotel in the centre of town.
You can see the chillies better on this building. Basque chillies are not very hot and are used as a table condiment in place of black pepper, as well as in cooking. Dried chilli powder is expensive and so are the seeds. When we were in Brittany I tried growing them but I had a failure - they never ripened and were not hot at all (so I ended up stuffing them like Jalapeno poppers which was yummy but time consuming). And one plant had completely different shaped chillies!
Whilst there we coincided with several coach loads of tourists. K and I spent a week here many years ago at a friend's holiday home, but it was October and wasn't too busy then, also I recall us having fantastic sunny weather, not like this gloom.
The church, Saint-Etienne, built in 1627.
We weren't here at the right time for a meal which was a shame, as all the restaurants in the little town serve Basque cuisine, which is quite nice. I did buy lots of gateau Basque from the supermarket though! It's delicious but not so easy to come across in other parts of France. They are either stuffed with a sweet creamy stuff or black cherry jam - another thing produced in this region and sold in all the tourist shops.
It rains a lot in this part of France and is lovely and green, and is also quite mild during winter. When we first came here I loved it so much I wanted to move here, but then I looked at the price of the properties (the ones with pretty facades) and had to forget that. They are very expensive! We did better where we eventually moved to - we still have Spain, the coast and the mountains nearby, plus not too cold winters, but much cheaper houses. 👍
After the desert we headed up to the Basque country, but over the border on the French side. K and I have already toured around the Basque country before on both sides of the border, but I wanted to revisit the French side as the architecture is so gorgeous.
As the weather was so lovely on this day we decided to take a walk around the headland at Hendaye, which is right beside the border.
It's not our first time here but the previous time was pre Moho, about 13 years ago! I didn't see too many butterflies (sadly) on this walk, but the two I captured below show the difference between a Wood White (Leptidea sinapis) on the left, and a Large White (Pieris brassicae) on the right (I think! Small and Large are hard to tell apart in photos). Wood Whites are far less common butterflies.
Chateau Abbadia, which contains an observatory, is open to the public. We didn't visit.
Below on the left is Clustered Bellflower (Campanula glomerata) and right, a Bee Orchid (Ophrys apifera), with my brother in the picture underneath. I was chuffed to find many Bee Orchids in the verges of the paths, especially as it was about a month later than I was seeing them in the south of the country.
Two Bee Orchids.
This is looking towards the town of Hendaye, with Spain in the distance.
Zooming in on this picture I can just see the little hotel where Keith and I stayed all those years ago. Now we have our own personal hotel! 😁
Rocks known as the Two Twins.
After this we visited some of the towns and villages which you will see in the next posts.
Here's a map showing where we came from (the desert) and the places we visited in the French Basque country. Hendaye is marked with a B.
Originally we had planned to visit Pamplona, but upon researching what to see and do there, it didn't sound very interesting! So we decided to go somewhere that my brother had found out about which although further away from the mountains, sounded fascinating.
It is an amazing desert landscape in Navarra, northern Spain, called Bardenas Reales, which became a UNESCO biosphere reserve in 2000. Below are some old rock dwellings which look very basic; my brother was the only person who ventured up there and said there was a load of rubbish inside some of the 'rooms' which is a shame. After this we set off on the circular route given to us by the Information Centre.
This map shows where we were over the last few days: Broto (red marker), Ainsa off to the right, then Jaca and then Bardenas Reales.
La Bardena Blanca, the most fragile part of the desert area is the middle section of the huge desert, which stretches for many kms in all directions, and part of it is in military use.
On the left, and in the photo below this one, is the rock formation known as Pisquerra, which would have been a bit more spectacular if we had been closer!
Our route was on a gravel road, which was good because it meant that people had to drive more slowly in this fragile ecosystem. In a motorhome you have to drive slower than a car due to things rattling so it took us a good few hours to do the circuit!
Of course we stopped a lot too to take photos and just look around. There are crop fields all through this desert area and I've seen photos of it looking green in the spring, but it was extremely arid when we were there. I guess there was enough moisture in the soil in spring for the wheat (or whatever) to grow, though I doubt the harvest would be very good in this kind of place.
I loved this pyramid although it doesn't seem to have a name.
Looking towards one of the most photographed rocks, called Castildetierra
The road ran right by Castildetierra, which has appeared in films though I don't know which ones, although Game of Thrones was filmed at Bardenas Reales - seems like many places in Spain that we have visited have been filmed for that show! (So much for the fragile ecosystem though, having hundreds of extras, the actors and all the film crew milling around ..... we at least kept to the roads.)
I just love this rock!
Our next destination was extremely green, in stark contrast to this landscape!
