A day in Bayonne

Today we planned to spend in Bayonne, while the weather continues to be good, and see all that we can see and do. Knowing we had nothing specific planned, and weren’t off walking or on an excursion to somewhere I suddenly felt drained of energy!! Sort of like on our rest days when you get tired just doing nothing…! I guess after 55 exciting days in France we can feel a bit slow…anyway, we had breakfast (at the hotel now - we had initially booked for 2 nights without breakfast, but added 4 nights and the new rate included breakfast) and quite a substantial one, more than just coffee and a pastry, and set off to see the city under normal conditions, compared to the crowded festive Sunday when we first arrived.

We took it easy, looked at the beautiful cathedral inside now that there wasn’t a mass going on, but first went to the tourist office to get a map which wasn’t in Basque! I have found out that the 3 languages some signs are in are Basque, French and Gascogne. (There are often signs in Spanish too, but Gascogne was the mystery one).

Then we basically just wandered, looking at shops, stopping for coffee, and sat in the public garden - very pretty and peaceful - to read kindles. Our main mission of the day was to visit the Basque museum which was interesting and well presented. We have both read books about Basque history and found it excellent. For dinner we found a tapas bar where we could have wine and tapas without waiting till late, and pick at what we chose without being faced with a big plateful! (Ted will be pleased to know that one of the tapas choices was gyozas, which we had - not at all Basque, but a change and delicious!!). We wandered back in the twilight, very pretty.Read more