A final few days in Spain

A final few days in Spain: Zarautz, Donostia–San Sebastian and a final port of call 
Final trip miles 3,537

Pitched: Midsummer's day in Spain

Sadly the crossing of the border at Hendaye did not miraculously produce the longed-for Spanish sunshine and our coastal campsite was a soggy and dismal affair. We quickly felt like ‘long termers’ bedded in for four nights as every other British, German and Dutch van moved off after only one night’s stay wheel spinning and carving up the grass causing the Spanish owner to shake  his head and complain loudly in animated Basque.

 

A view of Zarautz from the campsite

Just beached on Grande Playa

But the weather can’t spoil the charm of seaside town Zarautz. From our camp high on the cliffs we walked down the challengingly steep ‘bio path’ to the long curving beach where its mile and half of perfect sand was packed with slippery wet suit wearing surfers.

The old town behind the seafront has winding streets of three storey balconied shops and pensiones, including a trio of tower houses, and cavernous and dimly lit tapas, or pintxos, bars. Alongside the many fish shops, grocers and bakeries the old town also has probably the best town centre supermarket in Spain, the Eroski. We stocked up on favourites of light and feathery mushrooms, hot peppers, seasoned olives, avocados, a kilo of fresh gambas, Verdejo wine and Aurum beer and barely broke into a 10 euro note. Ace Eroski!

A shiny new Euskatren took us the half hour ride across the green hills to the gorgeous belle époque town of Donostia – San Sebastian.

Donostia-San Sebastian

 

El Sagrado Corazon

Curved around the pretty oyster-shaped bay of La Concha it is protected from the crashing Atlantic by a wooded islet and overlooked by a gigantic Rio de Janeiro style stone sculptured Christ. It’s colourful history includes being sacked 12 times since its founding by the Romans, including being utterly destroyed by Wellington’s victorious army, and each time being rebuilt by a determined local population often supported by a sun-worshipping Royal family member or two. 

  

Playa de la Concha

Puerto Vieja before the clouds gathered

A welcome sunny morning brought hundreds onto Playa de la Concha and we meandered along the elegant promenade of the Paseo de la Concha leaning over the balustrades to watch the beach activity. The old fishing harbour was full of leisure boats dodging canoeists, splashing dogs, diving children and fishing lines of the old boys lined along the harbour walls gutting their catches of fresh bass. Up on the rampart walls we felt the stiff cool breeze that is ‘combed’ by the huge cliff side iron sculptured prongs of the town’s famous artist Chillida. 

Back in the old town, we sought out a favourite pintxos bar from our visit the previous year and were quickly lost in the narrow streets packed with 'foodies' looking for the best place to stop for a tasty morsel or two. We found ‘Txalupa’ on our third circuit of the many tiny bars and bodegas – San Sebastian has more eateries per square meter than any other city in Spain.

Bar Txalupa - found eventually on Calbeton Fermin

A small but scrumptious feast of pintxos proved to be a crab salad stuffed red pepper, a tortilla and cheese wedge, a slice of bread topped with Serrano ham, goats cheese and caramelised onion and prawn and mayonnaise ‘inside out’ sandwich.

The practice is to visit the many pintxos bars spending no more than the time it takes to devour a couple of tapas in each, but after our helping of stuffed chillies and crab meat at a second bar we declared ourselves ‘out’ and headed back to the beach to walk off lunch. 

The rain in Spain fell mainly on..........us

Grey clouds had people leaving the sands so we strolled along the graceful boulevards back to the station mindful of the long haul uphill back to Bertha. Eventually back at camp there was just enough time to shower and cook dinner outside on the cadac before, once again, the heavens opened.

Our last day dawned bright, sunny and hot. Dammit. It was an easy drive to the port at gleaming Bilbao reached through an impressively engineered new bypass through the mountainside. The 20 minute drive on the new road saved at least an hour navigating the centre and cost a mere toll of 1.13euros. 27 degrees at 6pm and we were sitting outside Bertha with a cerveza suddenly remembering the searing heat of Greece.

What strange weather we have experienced and Bertha has coped with. A truly extraordinary journey and fittingly, we clocked up a landmark 3,500 miles today with views of the Bay of Biscay and our sea voyage home...

Sleepin' on the dock of the bay: one final night at Puerto Bilbao

The Atlantic coast: Bayonne & Saint-Jean-de-Luz

The Atlantic coast: Bayonne & Saint-Jean-de-Luz

Trip miles 3,412

Hidden in the sprawling conurbation of holiday homes, campsites and beach communities surrounding Biarritz is the medieval gem of Gascony, Bayonne. This incredibly pretty port town has the river Nives as its main street which separates the two similar areas of Grand and Petit Bayonne.

 

Cathédrale Sainte-Marie rises high above the city

Market stalls line the river walls and bridges

Tall half-timbered and colourful houses line the river on both sides and the narrow twisting streets are home to boutiques, restaurants and the gothic cathedral in Grande Bayonne and alley after alley of tiny neighbourhood bars and eateries in Petit Bayonne. The Vidauban designed town walls are fully intact and butt up to the wide river Adour, on which modern Bayonne port is busy.

 

Atelier du chocolat

The town is famous for whaling (introduced by the Basque community and highly lucrative in the Middle Ages), armaments (giving the world the name ‘bayonnet’) and chocolate (originally produced in the Jewish ghetto by refugees fleeing persecution in Spain in the 1600s). A sampling was called for so we chose a chocolaterie staffed by a charming girl who would happily have allowed us to try everything in the shop before eventually settling on a slab of dark chocolate with ginger and caramel.

Enjoying the sunshine on La Grande Plage, Saint-Jean-de-Luz

Moving towards the border with Spain we planned a short visit to Saint-Jean-de-Luz. This gorgeous white Basque town has a wide sandy beach and a colourful port and quay. It was the site of the wedding of Louis XIV to the Spanish Infanta Maria Teresa and the town built a grand house for each of them together with the touching Cathedral of St Jean Baptiste. Inside its roof in the style of the hull of a ship and its carved three storey wooden balconies made us think of the seafaring churches further up the Atlantic coast at Honfleur. We peered at the magnificently gloomy altarpiece until someone switched the lights on and a gorgeous baroque display of gold and cherubs and saints came to life against a sea of blue. 

Le port de Saint-Jean-de-Luz

 

Bertha in Saint-Jean-de-Luz

The campsite was a gem at just 14 euros a night. Thankfully, we saw Saint-Jean-de-Luz in the sunshine before heavy rain and wind poured themselves off the sea and onto us for three days.

It was time to batten down and take stock of our trip, so nearly ended. The bonus of wifi meant we could finally update the blog!

 

Sunset over the Atlantic...before the storms came in!

Week twelve – the French Atlantic coast: Biarritz

The French Atlantic coast: Biarritz

Trip miles 3,386

A return to the French Atlantic coast

We drove the 120 miles west along the fast A64 toll road from a free stop-over at Lannemezan. The weather was dreadful, headwinds and rain meant slow progress and the promised mountain views did not materialise out of the low-lying clouds. Visibility was less than 100 meters in some parts.

Le Phare de Biarritz

It was a relief to arrive in the late afternoon at a beachside aire in Anglet. The sun had now poked through the heavy clouds so we took a small beer each on the cliffs and looked out at the beacon shining on the waters from the light house at nearby Biarritz. It had been a long day on the road.

It was an enjoyable walk along the cliffs and back to the town the next day where well-dressed diners and laid-back surfers were lunching in the mix of belle époque and art deco bars and restaurants. The old port was full of fishing boats taking shelter behind the tall sea walls and the harbourside cafés served fish lunches that smelt tantalisingly of seafood, lemon and garlic.

  

Port-Vieux

A very public workout!

Beach life was fully embraced by locals and tourists alike and we enjoyed walking the cliffs skirting past joggers, power walkers and impromptu work outs. One girl’s daily routine seemed focused on a bizarre tree whacking exercise. Other older fitness fans made use of the freely available gym stations. We mooched leisurely on by.

  

Surf’s up on Grande Plage

As the sun heated up we joined the throngs of Friday beachgoers down at the town’s historic Café de Grande Plage, part of the splendid art noveau casino, for a glass of local vin blanc. A memorable way to celebrate our crossing of France from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic coast! Biarritz was filling up for the weekend...

Back at the aire and a commune of weekending Basque families had set up a noisy camp causing some French and German vans to leave in haste. We cheerily made small talk trying to dust up our various rusty Guatemalan Spanish phrases (“I can’t remember”, “I am from England”, “let’s go dancing”, “which bus goes to the volcano?”, “two beers please”, “my knee hurts!”) and were rewarded with a plate of freshly grilled sea bass caught that afternoon by our grinning and gap-toothed Basque neighbour, the patriarch of an enormous family of short dark men and sulky bleached blonde girls. We got along enjoyably for a couple of days together.

The packed aire at Anglet

  

The Midi Pyrenees: Vals, Foix & Saint Lizier

Vals, Foix and Saint Lizier

Trip miles 3,271

The narrow entrance through the rock

Leaving Mirepoix we stopped at Vals, a small hamlet on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route. Its ancient church is both perched on and under a granite cliff. Climbing up through a narrow cleft we entered the original subterranean Roman sanctuary.

From the 11th century onwards it had been used as a church. It was simple inside with ancient wooden pews and carved wooden chests lining the stone walls. 12th century frescoes of angels with eyes in their wings decorated the ceiling. 

Climbing up a winding wooden staircase we opened a door out onto a panoramic view of the countryside and the towering Pyrannees from the pretty 14th century bell tower.

Eglise Rupestre de Vals built into the rock

Château de Foix

We stopped at the last French town of Foix, before the N20 road ran south to Andorra. Less touristy and more provincial it has a medieval centre around an impressive 10th century Chateau, perched high above the wide River Aude.

Views of Plantaural and Ariège mountains from the Château

A dusty plaque marked a riverside house where the departement’s resistance leader, a woman, was assassinated by the Gestapo in 1942. It was one of an increasing number of memorials to resistance fighters. The French and Spanish Basque communities have a proud history of fierce independence so it’s perhaps not unsurprising that although so far from Paris this corner of France was busy with counterspy and sabotage activity by brave men and women.

Travelling further back in time we reached hilltop Saint Lizier, a Gallo-Roman town and one of France’s early Bishophrics.  Today it is a quiet and elegant maze of tall rose covered town houses winding their way around a 12th century cathedral.

 

The ancient town sits above the Salat river

Saint Lizier cloisters

We wandered through the large and peaceful cloisters and admired the unusual addition of a second, wooden storey. The Bishop’s Palace at the very top of the town afforded a view across to the mountains which were now a constant feature of our journey, the natural boundary between France and Spain.

Saint Lizier at the foot of the Ariège Pyrenees

Wanting to trial Bertha at altitude we spent a day driving west through L’Ariege and into the Comminges. Planning for a future trip, Simon was keen to see how she performed on the long inclines and we reached the pass of Col de Portet-d’Aspet at 1,069 meters easily. Many lycra-clad cyclists were making their slow way up the hairpin bends to the memorial of Italian cyclist Fabio Casartelli who died making the descent during the 1995 Tour de France.

 

Views of the Pyrenees from Col de Portet-d’Aspet

I was hopeful of spotting an Izard goat, particular to this part of the Pyranees and able to change the colour of its coat with the season. How fashionable! Unfortunately none were about that day so we made the fast and steep descent toward to the River Garonne, stopping for half an hour to rest Bertha’s hard-working brakes and waving to cyclists flashing downhill past us on the twisting road.

The Vallée de Luchon

Cathédrale Notre-Dame

St Bertrand-de-Comminges is a landmark stop on the pilgrimage route. Settled by Roman general Pompey its ruins include bathhouses, an amphitheatre, temple, basilica and marketplace. It is allegedly the place of King Herod’s exile. Its 11th century cathedral towers over the fortified medieval town and has a fully enclosed chancel, carved in wood and decorated with allegorical as well as religious icons from where the Latin mass is sung and celebrated without any distraction from the congregation. An interesting concept.

 

St Bertrand-de-Comminges from the road below

We wandered the pretty streets reflecting on just how much it costs you to be a pilgrim these days. The church was the only one in France we had paid to enter and the advertised room rates in the pretty bijou hotels were equivalent to central London’s. Meals were plentiful but set lunches started at 22 euros. 

It seems there is not much poverty expected in piety today!

Farming on the pilgrim route in Haute-Garonne