Friday, Day Four

Friday, September 9th

        This morning we walked a few hundred meters to Carrefour, a very large shopping center, where we found a nice patisserie. We each ordered cafe au lait, and small baguette with butter and jam. A perfect light breakfast for a couple of Euros.

      This morning we loaded two cars full of people for the day's adventure to Biarritz on the west coast of France near the Spanish border. It's a 116 km trip, and during most of the hour and a half it took we could see the impressively jagged peaks of the Pyrenees off in the distance to our left.

      We followed instructions to the main train station and waited a short while to be joined by Helen, a young woman from Richmond, Virginia who came to Biarritz for World Vision to start an outreach program for young people. She has been here for some time, and plans to stay, since she met and married Phillipe, a French civil engineer.

      We followed her pumpkin-orange little Renault through the winding streets and around many traffic circles, descending eventually past large elegant homes to a narrow road that skirts the ocean along the bottom of a steep cliff. There is a sea wall along the waterfront here, reinforced with a wide rip-rap of large black boulders. Just beyond the rocks that protect the shoreline there is a sandy bottom that probably forms a narrow beach when the tide is low.

      Large, long swells, perhaps three meters from trough to crest came rolling in from the Bay of Biscay, which is merely a slight curve to the western coast of France, really just the Atlantic Ocean. Hundreds of surfers could be seen sitting on their boards, floating up and over each passing swell, waiting for the perfect wave. When it was perceived that an approaching wave had just the right slope and height, surfers would swing around, belly-flop on their boards, paddling as fast as they could with their hands. Those who had timed it just right would be propelled forward down the slope of the wave, and with a quick grab and lurch would leap to their feet, suddenly transformed into darting, swooping dancers on the curling waves.

      Appropriately, the place where Helen took us for lunch was "Les Surfers". We all sat at one long table facing the water. The wall closest to the seawall was open to the breezes so we could see the surfers, the waves, and the ocean beyond as we ate lunch.

      Jane and I shared Merlu, a plate for two. The English name for this fish is hake. It was both ugly and delicious, the body split into two attached gently broiled fillets drenched in garlic butter and judiciously sprinkled with herbs just behind the dark head with its gray eyes and gaping sharp-toothed mouth.

      After lunch Helen and Philippe led the four-car caravan on a wandering tour of Biarritz, past the casinos and cliff-top mansions, along steep curving cobblestone streets lined with shops offering overpriced elegant goods for wealthy customers, down along the waterfront with small beaches nestled in rocky coves, and up again through more modest neighborhoods. We stopped for a short visit at their new church, a small rented space in a building shared with a surfers' hostel.

      An almost-full moon rose above the low hills in front of us as we headed back toward our hotel after a long day. Tomorrow is a travel day from Lescar east to Beynac in the valley of the Dordogne.

Thursday, Day Three

Thursday, September 8

      It's dark, and Jane is up and moving about, making too much noise for the middle of the night. I think it's 1:00 am. It IS 1:00 am in Virginia, but it's 7:00 in the morning here in France, and it's dark because the curtains are keeping out the bright sunshine. I stumble out of bed and into some clean clothes, and we head down to the hotel lobby for a continental breakfast of Croissants, cafe au lait, fresh kiwi fruit, orange juice. Price is 7 euros, almost $10.

      At 8:30 we meet Robert and several others. We'll all ride together today on a trip to Bilbao, Spain.

      This time we stay on track for awhile. We pause from time to time to take toll road tickets or to insert them in toll booth slots and feed Euros into the slot that raises the gate to let us proceed. Since the formation of the European Union, there is no indication of any demarcation between France and Spain, no official border-crossing, no checking of passports, nothing. I'm not sure when we actually left France and entered Spain, but I do notice that all of a sudden all of the signs are in Spanish. Displayed with the Spanish language signs are additional rows of letters that are obviously yet another language, but I don't recognize it at all. It wasn't until later in the day that I learned that more than 600,000 people in north-western Spain and south-western France speak Euskara (yoush-KAR-ah), an ancient, isolated language that is believed to have been spoken in this region since long before the Roman invasions that started in 58 B.C. It doesn't seem to be related to any other known language in the world.

      As we approach the coast of the Bay of Biscay and the town of Orio, we exit to try to find restroom facilities. A narrow road winds first along a grassy ridge where we see several groups of hikers with backpacks, and a number of cyclists challenging the steep slopes.

      The road dips down between old two story houses. The smooth pavement disappears, replaced by cobblestones, and the street into the oldest part of this old fishing village becomes every steeper and narrower until poor Robert is forced to slow to a crawl, inching between walls that threaten to scrape the car on both sides. Everyone holds their breath as he inches around a very tight corner, hoping we don't get to a point where we can go no farther. It's certainly impossible at this point to back up!

      The steep slope lessens a bit and the street widens a bit as we approach the flat bottom of the valley next to the River Oria and enter the newer part of town. We move along a shop-lined street that appears to be only a few hundred year old, then come to several blocks of new apartment buildings. Robert pulls off on a blind side street, and several people scurry off toward the town center a block away to try to find restroom facilities. They later report that the owner of a small shop, not open, has allowed them access to the single toilet in his establishment.

      Taking a short walk while the others are away, I find an extended area close to the river where there are numerous small farming plots. I don't know if they are community plots or individually owned. I watch an old lady plucking fruit from the low lying branches of a fig tree near the dirt path. 

     Turning back toward the car, walking along a side street, I found a poster advertising the upcoming rowing races. Each boat appears to have 15 or 20 men manning the oars. I am amazed at the similarity of these Basque long boats in the picture to the fautasi longboats that are raced on the bay at Pago Pago, Samoa.

      In our attempt to get back on the highway to Bilbao we missed a turn somewhere, and spend perhaps 30 minutes wandering small, wooded, winding roads that lead us in a loop back into the lower part of Orio before we finally are able to proceed toward our destination.

      Robert has no clear idea of the exact location of the ultra-modern Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, so we get an extended rambling tour of various parts of this city of more than 350,000. Eventually though, we begin to spot signs to the museum, and find space in an underground lot to park the car about a half mile from the museum.

      The strange, random metallic curves of the Frank Gehry designed building on the banks of the Nervion River catch the late morning sun and also cast dramatic shadows to create a really fascinating piece of architecture. I had convinced myself ahead of time that I would dislike it, but was surprised that it was so intriguing.

     The members of the group wandered off in different directions, promising to meet back at the entrance to the parking garage no later than 4 pm. Jane and I strolled along the riverside and past the museum to view it from different sides, and settled to eat a light lunch of baguettes with thin-sliced ham and pieces of a delicious cheese at an outdoor cafe before heading into the Guggenheim.

      There were vast exhibit rooms with large abstract pieces of art and paintings that Sydney and Francis Lewis would have loved for their peculiarity. 

     I found that the building itself was the only really interesting piece of art, but that alone was worth the trip to Bilbao!