During the planning stages of our trip we had made firm accommodation bookings for little more than half of our stay and decided we would wing the rest as we travelled, hoping that something suitable would turn up either through Home Exchange.com or Trusted Housesitters.com. With our trip’s emphasis on all things French, our first plan for the Basque Country, our last main locale to be investigated, had been to stay north of the border for six weeks or more in or near Hendaye, Saint-Jean-de-Luz or even Biarritz, and then take the occasional trip across to the Spanish side to sample the tapas scene in San Sebastian, and perhaps explore a bit beyond. Fortune had other plans for us however, and luckily, we only succeeded in finding accommodation along the Spanish Basque Coast, where we discovered all those beautiful places that I have already written about, and would have otherwise probably missed. Thus, eventually, as the end of our journey got ominously closer, we took the plunge and did exactly the reverse of our original plan and made one or two forays across the border in a northerly direction, and again we were delighted by much of what we found there. But sadly, with time running out, we really didn’t give ourselves enough time to explore as thoroughly as we might have wanted.
So, one fine February day with sun and clouds but no rain and 14oC forecast, we took the now familiar N-634, snaking through the countryside towards the hinterland of San Sebastian and thence to the frontier at Irun, and across the Franco-Spanish border running down the middle of the river Bidasoa. Immediately we were in Hendaye, initially driving past the vast complex of sidings of Gare de Hendaye railway station; it is there that long ago in the days before the freedom of movement across borders that came with membership of the EU, all train traffic between the two countries would stop for border controls, and to get the carriage wheels adjusted for the different gauge tracks on either side of the border. And now that so many tourists arrive by plane rather than train, the station’s more modern opposite number the Aeropuerto de San Sebastian opposite the station across the estuary in Spain, takes most of the tourist load.
Once past this industrial zone, we found ourselves driving north alongside the estuary and looking west across the large Baie de Chingoudy at the mouth of the river, the beautiful setting that makes Hendaye so special for many people. Eager not to waste too much time on being tourists yet again, we soon found a place to park near the Moorish architecture of the original Casino building on the sea-front and wandered back a couple of blocks to make casual enquiries at an ‘Immobilier’, Agence Doribane, where the staff greeted us like old friends, and very quickly had arranged to show us four properties a few days later. So that was good; we immediately had a reason to make us come back and not simply spend our last week staring at the beautiful sea-view from our lofty apartment in Getaria! We then went back into the old town, which we found to be simple, quiet and friendly; but sadly, it was without a single, really old, historic building on which to feast our touristy eyes, the sad result of the military bombardment that effectively leveled the whole community during the War of the Pyrenees at the end of the eighteenth century.
After a nice bowl of soup at a little café across from the Mairie on the Place de la Republique, we continued our drive up the coast towards Saint-Jean-de-Luz, stopping first in the outskirts of Hendaye to take a quick stroll around the gardens of Chateau Observatoire Abbadia. Situated high up on a hill overlooking the lush green woods and farmland that lead down to Pointe Sainte Anne, the elegant chateau, built between 1864 and 1879, was designed in the neo-Gothic style, and incorporates many mysterious features, characteristic of the enigmatic nature of the owner, the explorer Antoine Thomson d’Abbadie.
Rejoining the Route de la Corniche, we followed the rocky coastline to Socoa, a small seaside town nestling in the southwest corner of the bay that is the estuary of the La Nivelle river separating Ciboure and Saint-Jean-de-Luz. Once a fishing port, Socoa’s small harbour built in 1624 is now mostly occupied by pleasure craft and is guarded by Fort de Socoa that was built on the point and then rebuilt many times over the ensuing years, generally, as a result of being sacked, burnt or destroyed in some way during the many conflicts that it witnessed right up to the end of the German occupation in WWll. A long breakwater stretching out from the fort and partway across the bay has an interesting design being concave on its sea face. This feature which very effectively catches and dissipates the power of the waves without receiving a damaging direct impact, creating a wonderful wall of spray as the larger waves arrive and are thrown upwards like the ball out of a pelote basket (‘xistera’).
Together with two more sections of the breakwater, one in the middle of the bay and a second reaching out from Pointe de Sainte-Barbe on the far side of the bar, all three sections contribute to protecting the fine beach in Saint-Jean-de-Luz and the houses beyond, which in past years have been subject to some severe floods when the Bay of Biscay has been at its most savage.
The now famous resort of Saint-Jean-de-Luz started its journey towards prosperity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, partly from its association with the fishing industry, but also from the activities of its own Basque corsaires or pirates who attacked and captured passing vessels, resulting in the town being nicknamed the “Viper’s Nest” by English sailors of the time. The wealth that was brought about by these activities led to the erection by local shipowners of two handsome palaces overlooking Port de Saint-Jean-de-Luz. In 1640, Joannot de Hareneder constructed maison Joanoenia, which some years later was to become Maison de l’Infante, and in 1643 Johannis de Lohobiargue built the house now known as Maison de Louis XlV. The event that led to these donations to royalty took place in 1660, when the Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste was chosen as the venue for the marriage of King Louis XlV to Maria Theresa, the Infanta of Spain, fulfilling a consolidating clause in the Treaty of the Pyrenees. This solid-looking fifteenth century church, on rue Leon Gambetta, hides an unusual but truly beautiful interior with five galleries across the west wall, fronted by the organ, three handsome wooden galleries along each side of the nave, and a choir and transept wonderfully decorated on a blue background with many carved statues and architectural details picked out in gold leaf.
And hanging from the rafters over the centre of the nave is a model of a sail and steam-driven paddle boat reminding the worshippers, and others, of the town’s rich maritime heritage.
Nowadays, the corsaires are but a memory, though the locals still know how to extract a few euros from the pockets of passing tourists, and not just the English these days, for it is a very cosmopolitan resort.
Taking a stroll along rue Leon Gambetta, people-watching on the way, we saw many very chic, well-presented, elderly couples among the crowds window-shopping the large selection of smart boutiques, as well as other shops with windows full of delicious looking local gourmet specialities, wines and chocolate truffles. There were plenty of cafés and tea-shops, and we stopped for some afternoon sustenance at Pâtisserie Etchebaster, which has been in the same place since 1909; they served us patisseries and coffee as good as any we’d found in France, but that was not enough reason for them to be almost twice as expensive! So Saint-Jean-de-Luz is not a cheap town, but it is a delightful, elegant town to walk around.
We took a stroll along the seafront looking into the first floor windows of old, three or four-storey apartment buildings strung along the water-front, many sporting a delicate wrought-iron balcony, with their ground floors slightly hidden behind the high seawall. It was easy to hark back to the life of a well-heeled visitor there in the Edwardian hey-days when travel was a more luxurious pastime of the few, rather than the mass tourism of today.
But dreaming of the past wasn’t what we were there for, and as we drove away from Saint-Jean-de-Luz back towards the sun setting behind the Spanish hills in the distance, we carried with us a supply of much-needed organic staples from an excellent Bio store we found on the outskirts of town. We also had a second date arranged with yet another agent immobilier, this time to view properties in the villages in the hills inland from this lovely piece of French-Basque coast. So we would be back at least twice more in our eight remaining days which was a lovely prospect!
And thus it was that on St Valentine’s Day, guided by the very helpful though slightly disorganized and rather rushed Jara, we fell in love with an almost perfect house on top of the hill behind Hendaye, with views towards the Pyrenees in one direction and the Bay of Biscay in the other. Beautifully appointed and ticking pretty well every box on our must-have list, the only reason it became only ‘almost perfect’ in our critical eyes was the oversize chimney of the house just below the property which neatly split the wonderful view in two.
Unfortunately, Jara had not followed the realtor’s mantra “Save the best to last”, and the next two homes we viewed that day were not in the same league.
Mind you, one of them, a wonderfully quirky, though rather dark and impractical house in the shadow of some very tall overgrown leylandii cypress trees, owned by a very elderly couple who sat quietly in the kitchen during our visit, was packed to the gills with antiques, had a better garden than the ‘almost perfect’ house, and had wonderful views in a north-westerly direction over the harbour towards Hondarribia on the Spanish side.
And the third house can only be described as ‘a dog’, with apologies to all our canine friends!
Thus armed with some ideas of what could be found in the area, we explored further inland and visited the villages of Urrugne and neighbouring Ascain. Urrugne was a tidy little town more than a village, with a large church that was a smaller edition of the Eglise Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Saint-Jean-de-Luz that we visited earlier in the week. Continuing our house-hunting, we visited a branch of Carmen Immobilier where we picked out a couple more homes to view in another two days time.
On the way back to the car across the square, we stopped to watch a display of singing and dancing by a group of thirty or more local primary school children, all dressed up in home-made peasant outfits. It made us think how lovely it would be to watch our own grandchildren perform so charmingly in a pretty little town square in the midst of such attractive lush green countryside!
We arrived in Ascain as the sun was starting to go down and saw the village only briefly. Then we had a very congenial drive back towards the Spanish border through more verdant countryside, rolling hills and small valleys, green fields and woods, dotted here and there with typical Basque houses, their exposed wooden frameworks picked out in red, black or green.
With only four days to go before we started our drive back towards Paris and our flight home across the Pond to sunny southern California, and with two of those days already earmarked for further house-hunting on French side and a last visit for more pintxos in San Sebastian, we decided to investigate the local ‘homes-for-sale’ scene back in Getaria. Single-family, detached homes are a rarity in that part of Spain, for, as we had already discovered, the planning regulations are geared towards concentrated developments of high density high-rise apartments, with severe restrictions on the development of agricultural land.
However, we found one home on the hills behind the village with fine views out to sea, surrounded by vineyards, though with the undesirable possibility of lots of chemical spraying, plus an unfortunate view of the roof of the rather ugly factory building owned by the landlord of our apartment block by the sea. These negatives added to make the prospect of the much-needed refurbishment work a less than attractive proposition in view of the rather high list price, the latter, no doubt, a consequence of the scarcity of such homes in the area. So then we thought, well why not have a look at one or two of the magnificent apartments for sale in our building; after all, the views over the Bay of Biscay are indeed spectacular! And that was when we very nearly took another snap decision to purchase a wonderful, three-bedroom, penthouse duplex, with a verandah facing the sea and a large terrace with views over the hills above the village and the fishing port and the main street five storeys below. But, lovely as it was, it left far too many of our boxes un-ticked, and we, probably very sensibly, decided to calm down, think rationally and wait a bit longer. After all, we still had two more countries to visit before such decisions should be made, and we had vowed to follow that sage advice to ‘rent-before-we-buy’!
Thus we spent our last day relaxing ‘at-home’, enjoying our view of the bay one last time, and taking a last walk up to the top of Roche San Anton, so quiet and peaceful at that time of year even on such a fine day. It was enjoyable just watching far below and out on the sea the movements of the fishing boats coming and going from the port, and, as we descended, watching the activities of the fishermen safely back in the port, cleaning, mending and folding the enormous nets, piled on the jetty beside their proud vessels. Then one more delicious home-cooked meal, using up all the leftovers in the fridge before our departure the next morning, and we were ready for the next and final stage of our six month’s exploration.