St Jean de Luz, France ~ Where are the Jays

Carol and Jeff infinity
We are in an art installation surrounded by mirrors with lights suspended

Okay so I told everyone we were doing a loop around the northern part of Spain for a month and here I am writing about a town in France. So, what's the story? Well, this town is maybe 6 miles from the border and was much cheaper than the Spanish town we meant to visit. Truthfully, I am quite glad we ended up here because it is a nice, quaint, small beach town. It does not look like Spain or probably much of France for that matter. We are in Basque country. The locals are quite proud of their Basque heritage. We saw it in our last stop in LaGuardia Spain which is also part of Basque. The Basque have their own language which is like no other. All of the signs are in French and then Basque and across the border it is Spanish and then Basque. There is a Basque flag and in Spain that province is a little more independent than all of the others except for Catalonia (Barcelona area). We have rented a 1-bedroom apartment about a half mile from the city center and a little further you find the waterfront area. We have an elementary school next door, and they are still in session at the 4th of July although this might be their last week before summer break. The food is quite good here as is the shopping which doesn't hurt that they are having sales. It is a great place just to wander. Much to our surprise when we finally stuck a toe in the beach water toe found that the water is warm. Oops we missed a good beach opportunity except that it tended to be a little windy and cool for us for the beach.

Our apartment for the week upstairs

Le Tour De France

When we were back in Rioja at a winery sharing a tasting with a family from Georgia, we discovered that the Tour De France was starting the next day in this general part of Europe. Our first concern was our ability to drive here since they close the roads - obviously we got here fine. Then I realized that the race was going through St Jean de Luz on our first full day in town. Luckily, we had no plans for the day since the main roads were closed and we got to watch a major sporting event. Literally the race was a half mile away from our apartment! It took a lot of googling to figure out where the course was locally and what time to expect things to happen. The family had taught us about the caravan that comes through first. It is a lot of sponsor vehicles many decorated with emblems of the sponsor or huge bicyclist on it. It was kind of like being at Mardi Gras where you are trying to get them to throw you something. Compared to Mardi Gras they are chintzy with the give aways, but then again, they are doing this for over 3 weeks and lots of miles. My whole haul was an inexpensive bicycle style hat and a bag of candy that says Tour De France on it. Unlike many events in the US, a lot of these people were aiming for young men rather than kids. I guess that is their target market.

Funny to us was that after the caravan, the races did not show up for another hour. Why have all of us on the course so far ahead of the race? Many people did leave. Obviously, some people were watching livestreaming of the race because they started showing up with their phones and telling us where they were. Any geographical description was pretty much lost on us. We faithfully held on to our spot on an island by a round about looking down the road to the bridge that they had to cross to enter town. We had seen lots of random vehicles some alone some in groups but suddenly we had a bunch and then we were all cheering because the lead vehicle was coming. We almost missed the leader he was so far in front of the pack. He was a good 100 meters in front of everyone else even vehicles were in between! The pack oh my what a site and a feel. The pack or Peloton had 3 or 4 bicyclists upfront and then an extremely tight pack of tons of riders. Since they were entering a roundabout where we were they were only 2 lanes for them which may have made it tighter. Much to our surprise there were so many of them going so fast that they had formed a strong wind - think being passed by a semi truck going fast on the highway and causing your car to move. That was our sensation as they passed. Then it was support vehicles with lights and sirens flashing behind them and it was all over. They call the Kentucky Derby the greatest 2 minutes of racing as a fan this was more like 30 seconds of racing. Time to walk back home with everyone else in town.

Click on the video below to watch our few seconds of the race.

Blue Circle is leader
Red circle is Peloton aka Pack

Close ups as the video goes so fast

San Sebastián, Spain

We have plotted out when we are going to a couple of the places we want to see in the area and have decided to visit San Sebastian the town we had aimed to stay in the next day. We wake up to an overcast day with a slight chance of rain. Late morning, we finally make it out the door for the half hour drive to the town. It starts to rain lightly on us, and both hope it ends and are glad we brought our rain jackets. Get to the main town and park the car and are both muttering how we like St Jean de Luz better. This is a nice city while we are in a nice town. The architecture is more Spanish - no half-timbered buildings here and they are taller. We start to walk around the beach front (beach of La Concha) which is bigger, and the city grows on us. There are some neat modern sculptures by Eduardo Chillida on the promenade. We make it to the end (go through a tunnel watch some kayaking lessons and other school groups go by) of the promenade which has wrapped around the bay and there are 3 unique sculptures on rocks in the water. We inspect them and then decide to go back to a seaside restaurant and have a late lunch. While we are sitting there we notice a sign describing something (English even!!) so we wander over there and learn that the sculptures are called Peine Del Viento or Comb of the Wind. The plaque describes the artist's inspiration and what it took to install the pieces. While we ate we also admired an island in the bay- Santa Clara Island and debate what one thing is. I think the island looks like a great home for Batman. In reality it is now just a tourist spot with an abandoned lighthouse. We decide to leisurely walk back to our car along the promenade. It is now midafternoon to us Americans and it is sunny. The beach and the swimming areas are now packed with beach goers enjoying the water. We see families, open water swimmers, surfers on the small waves in one area and just plain people having fun. Decide it is a better place than first impression, but we still prefer St Jean de Luz!

We are ready for rain

Statue of Christ watching over us

Top and bottom right are Eduardo Chillida’s Comb of the Earth (Peine del Viento)
Bottom Left is 1 of 2 sand art that was washed away at high tide

Wow, what a difference a sunny day makes

St Jean de Luz, France

Beauty scared by the vestiges of WWII

Plage d'Erromardie

As our hosts called it this is the wild beach in St Jean de Luz. We walked down there a couple of times. We passed an outdoor stadium and debated what it was for the first time. I thought bull fights since I saw pictures of bulls Jeff thought I was wrong. Then we passed several campgrounds and finally came to the water. There is a tiny bit of a beach, but the views are fantastic, and we get a drink and set at a counter overlooking the ocean for a while. We now have to walk back up the paved trail to town and our place. The mysterious stadium is now coming alive. Then we pass a family with two young girls holding hot pink stuffed bulls (yes you read that right) who are obviously heading for that stadium. I later saw an ad and realize that yes there are "bulls" in the stadium. I say bulls because they are actually heifers, and their horns have caps on them. In the pictures, it looks like some combination of a Nickelodeon game show with inflatable obstacles and a bull race/show.

Morning run

Guggenheim Museum Balboa, Spain

The Guggenheim Museum was on my list as soon as I knew about it. Partially I just wanted to see the building and yes, it is impressive in person. The surrounding area is nice too with the nearby bridge being worked into the museum's atmosphere and some very nice old buildings across the river. The museum is not that large which I appreciated and is all modern art. When we were there at least most of the halls had temporary exhibits. Our first picture on this blog is from one of those exhibits. The artist experiences sensory events kind of like an epilepsy seizure and has built this exhibit to allow others to experience those events in a positive way. It turned into our favorite exhibit of the day.

We explored the outside of the museum from pretty much every angle. The dog planter is on the street side and the opposite side is the river. The museum has a series of fountains in the front and back with large red dots in it - the dots are 3 dimensional and not just painted on the floor. While we were sitting outside having a snack I thought we heard the fountains come on. We would later realize that no what I heard was the misting system come on around the walkways.

Fog emerged from underneath the bridge each hour

Dog of live flowers is an iconic statute
The spider is almost 9 meters tall, see the people in bottom right
Iron work is by Eduardo Chillida whose work we saw on the coast of San Sebastián

Inside the museum
Bottom art had lots of children running around inside enjoying the maze

San Juan de Gaztelugatxe set of Dragonstone in Game of Thrones

When the ticket takers are making sure everyone has water, you know it is going to be a long hot walk! It was. I think Jeff said it was 2 KM which is around a mile. Sounded nice enough when he brought the site up. What he did not realize was that it is a hard 2km walk. First it is down a steep hill, then you get a little flat before you start walking up that rock wall staircase. On top of that, we thought it was going to be rainy and chilly, so we were overdressed for the hike. In spite of all that, it was quite pretty up on top of the hill and a unique walk.

You can appreciate why they chose this gorgeous location

Click below (3:24) for scene filmed here

Jeff didn’t have a Dragon fly over him, but he wished one had
Top of frame is a chapel where in the show a large castle stands

It is a long way down

Le Train de La Rhune

The last thing I had on my list was the train in La Rhune. It is a well-known tourist site and you are supposed to be able to see the Bay of Biscay from the top. So, the plan is to visit it on our way to Pamplona which is our next stop. It is only a half hour away from St Jean de Luz, but it is completely different. Yes, it is still Basque country. But we drive up a hill to a small town in the woods, hunt for a parking place and then luckily get on the next train. Oh, I should add it is a cog railway and we are on it for 35 minutes as it makes its way up an even higher mountain. We have started the ride in France but when we get to the top and end of the railway we are in Spain. We have a little over an hour up at the top before we are scheduled for the return trip down the hill. Unfortunately, as we were going up the hill, fog and clouds move in and we never get to see the Bay of Biscay, but the rest of the scenery was nice. We saw lots of horses and were able to look down on the towns below us in Spain.