st jean de luz

For our final day, Sunday, we took a very early train out to St Jean de Luz, and got there around 7:15am. Perhaps you can imagine what a small French town looked like at 7:15am on a holiday Sunday: completely uninhabited. This was good in a way, as we got pics of the town without people in the streets and such (though I have not gotten those yet) but at the same time, we could not even find a place to eat. We walked through pretty much the whole town - it didn't take long - and took note of some shops we wanted to visit and places we might go.

The whole reason we went to St Jean de Luz, however, was to go up a nearby mountain on a train Holly recommended, and at the top there is an even smaller, more Basque town peopled mostly by shepherds. She said they are really friendly and will hang out with tourists and drink beer. However, since it was Pentecost, the trains were not running often and the schedules did not work out in our favor. At first we were really disappointed by this, but when we saw how cool the town was, it was okay.

St Jean de Luz is a small, very old beach town that is both gorgeous and quaint. It has a medieval look, and yet it is a type of medieval I was completely unfamiliar with: it did not feel like France, Spain, or even Italy or Germany, but something distinct. Basque, I suppose. Nearly all the buildings had red and green - Basque colors - prominently incorporated in the architecture, and again there was that strange, almost German style. You can also see the typically Basque geometric embellishments on most buildings.

The town used to be more important than it is now, because it was a convenient port. Louis XIV (Versailles, Sun King) got married to Maria Theresa of Spain here, as it is really close to the Spanish border. The house he stayed in still has some of its rooms set up as they were when he was there, and it is a neat little museum. The composer Ravel also grew up there.

So after checking out the town for a while we saw things slowly start to open; we were particularly interested in a market we had seen earlier. We decided rather than finding a boulangerie or something for breakfast we'd go through the market, grab a feast of traditional Basque food, and have a picnic on the beach. All the vendors were really nice when we asked them about the crazy-sounding Basque dishes, and I got many compliments on my French. Our feast consisted of: 2 types of paella (one that had a lot of whole sea animals in it), 2 types of Basque cheese (delicious!), bread, a type of potato salad, a veal salad-thing, mini gateaux Basque in both plain and the traditional black cherry flavor (a dessert, sort of like a cross between pound cake and cheesecake, something I can't remember! and some Basque wine. My friend took pics of all the food; when I get them I'll put them up.

By the time we finished our brunch-feast, everything was pretty much open. Walking back into the center we couldn't believe it was the same town: the streets were filled with people, the cafes crowded, and vendors had set up their wares on the sidewalks. It was also gorgeous by then, so we were content to just stroll around. I really wanted to see the cathedral where Louis XIV was married, so we made our way there. As we rounded the corner there were suddenly hordes of people lined up, waiting and watching the cathedral entrance, and lots of little girls dressed up in outfits similar to those flamenco dancers wear.

We were thoroughly confused for a few minutes until I started to listen to the music coming from the cathedral. It was a Latin prayer set to contemporary gospel-meets-Spain music; I realized this was all part of the Pentecost celebration. The French are big on Pentecost, I'm not sure why. Anyway, a few minutes later we saw a parade wind its way through the main road, with people in traditional costumes (big red dresses with large ruffles, suits with swords) riding horses and girls and women doing little dances in the street. It was really entertaining, but there were so many people we decided to walk along the beach instead, to a very green hill we had seen before. You can kind of see what I mean in this picture:


So we ambled along the coast, stopping at the curious "Festival of Pubs", and climbed the hill. It was a green I've only seen in Ireland and had amazing views of the harbor.



The grass was so enticing that I took a while just chilling out on the side of the hill (I was not actually sleeping - this is mostly to emphasize the peacefulness of the whole area)



And we had some fun taking pseudo-artsy shots


But by the time we came back down it was time to catch our train back to Paris. It was a REALLY long train ride, about 6.5 hours, and I had a final the next day. But it was such a great trip it was worth it to spend the weekend there!