Pyrenees Trip June 2024 - Part 6 Hendaye, Basque Country, France

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.