the basque adventure

So from Biarritz to Spain….well how could one miss such a short deviation (sic)…….we decided to spin ourselves for an extra thirty minutes to the south and head to San Sebastian…because after all it was just over that hill…………that scary winding hill that plummeted down ….omg we are in the Pyrenees, what were we thinking????? And again we got lost and found ourselves in the ugly industrial port end of the beautiful ( so everyone kept telling us ) San Sebastian………eventually after realising that whilst my French is simple and petit, my Spanish is zero……we panicked!!!! I couldn’t even read the street signs……..somehow we found the centre of town and a car park down a big tunnel and some tight corners and parked the car….we emerged on the beach in the middle of the bustling city…what the??? It was beautiful…but way to cosmopolitan and built up for me!! We searched for a public loo which we really needed by this time and I had to ask the Spanish if they spoke English or French and haltingly found what we needed in a mixture of Spanish hand signals and poor French????  The toilet was in an ice-cream parlour which made us feel obliged to buy ice creams first……..and then after relieving ourselves we walked and ate along the promenade……….and wondered what we had done…..

Then to our original destination…..St Jean de Luz…..in fact we stayed just across the bridge  and ten minutes away in Ciboure….again breathtaking beauty assailed us…and mini little streets winding up very steep hills…..as we manipulated our little car ever higher my stomach inched closer to my mouth and when we realised with some shock that yes we had booked to stay in that place up there the one at the very top of the steepest hill I swear I stopped breathing for 10 minutes while we twisted ourselves around impossible corners and squeezed into the hotel driveway…..now to park in our allotted postage stamp…arghhhhhhh Thank goodness the view more than made up for our terror filled arrival!! 

We walked till we dropped again and explored this quaint hilly, cobbled very very scenic part of the coast line with a minute doggedness! It was worth it!! We also had some fine Basque cuisine and drank red wine sitting on little chairs in the street with many other full voiced French folk having a very very good time and nodded to passers-by……

There were churches filled with awesome carvings and artistry, quaint shops filled with some inspiring artworks and intriguing souvenirs, little old ladies who insisted on speaking fast French and smiling at me as I stumbled out pigeon French answers….. and even the discovery of some guys practicing tight rope walking with a tight rope stretched across a perilous looking bit of ocean, craggy cliff to craggy cliff…..

And then that view to die for (could be a literal thing) from our room …….stretching the bay of Biscay out to us on a platter and the lights of St Jean de Luz at night…..”perfait”