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.
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Cathédrale Sainte-Marie rises high above the
city
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Le port de Saint-Jean-de-Luz |
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| 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!
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| Sunset over the Atlantic...before the storms came in! |
