Pyrenees Trip June 2024 - Part 8 St Jean Pied de Port, Basque Country

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.

Pyrenees Trip June 2024 - Part 7 St Jean de Luz and Espelette, Basque Country

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. 👍

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.

The Basque Country

It's pouring with rain as I write this and I've got an apple crumble baking in the oven from the meagre pickings from the orchard. It all seems so autumnal that I fancy a sunny trip down memory lane. This time last year we spent a fabulous 10 days in the Basque country, which straddles the border with France and Spain on the Atlantic coast, all nestled into the lower parts of the Pyrenees mountain range.

I've never really shared these photos apart from a posting here about San Sebastian in Spain as part of a 7 day blog challenge back in March, and one of my French Friday postings about the Villa Arnaga, whose gardens were utterly remarkable. The Basque country is so completely different to where I live in Brittany, with the only similarity being that the native people have their own, totally incomprehensible language! The architecture, the mountainous scenery, the cuisine, are all different, although some of the coastline is as beautiful as Brittany, but in a different kind of way; it's still rocky but there are more cliffs the further one gets into Spain. The climate is wet and mild and all sorts of plants grow outside there which are not remotely hardy up here in the north west of France. All that made me want to move there and I felt quite unsettled when I first came back home, but a quick look at the property prices in that part of France and I soon changed my tune. It's obviously where everyone want to retire to - if you can afford it!

The weather was warm and sunny most of the time we were away, sometimes as warm as 25C, whilst our friends who were housesitting for us suffered cloud and gloom and about 18C - pretty much what today is like, plus rain!

I'm just going to pick out a few random photos and post them here, then give you a link to my Picasa album if you'd like to see any more.

Typical French Basque architecture with Piment d'Espelette decorations.
A chocolate/bonbon shop in St Jean de Luz, France.

Colourful boats in front of Fort Socoa, near St Jean de Luz, France.

A spot where we stopped for a picnic.

The lower foothills of the Pyrenees. Wild horses roam free up on the mountainsides.

More beautiful Basque architecture at La Bastide Clairence, France.

Here we are in Spain, looking at the river which marks the border
between the two countries. The town of Hendaye is on the French side,
and the town of Hondarribia on the Spanish side.

Umm, no thanks!

One of the really wild horses who ambled over to check us out,
on our way inland and uphill to the Foret d'Iraty, France.

This point was about 1,500m high and that was the only ski station that we saw.
Further inland the mountains get much taller.

The higher we went, the more the autumn colours became apparent.
It's so mild, lush and green down near the coast it's like we went from autumn back to summer.

A beautiful house in St Jean Pied de Port, France.

This lane is part of the pilgrim trail to Santiago de Compostela,
or St Jacques de Compostelle as it is known here in France.

Lesaka, up in the mountains and just over the border in Spain,
where the houses had quite an alpine look to them

There are some fabulous forests here!

Espelette, the village where we stayed. The small town is famous for its mild chilli
which is used in place of black pepper as a table condiment, and liberally flavours their cuisine.

The local hotel where we ate a number of times and learned to understand and
pronounce a few Basque words on the menu! 

If you'd really like to see more, I have an album in Picasa all in date order and captioned, which I made for my mum. It's not public but anyone with the link can view it. There are rather a lot of photos in it, although you can view the thumbnails and just pick out a few to look at - if you're bored and it's raining where you are too!