Banca

Once the tour with Florence was finished we headed straight to the bus and got on the road to Banca, where we spent the night. It was a 30 minute drive up into the Pyrenees mountains to reach Banca. Everything was very lush and green up here, and our hotel was only about a kilometre or so from from the Spanish border. Jerome pointed out where the border was at the top of the adjacent mountains.

Banca is a commune of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of south-western France. (Ed - There are a lot of regions and sub-regions in France!) It is part of the former province of Lower Navarre. Economic activity is now mainly agricultural. There used to be copper and silver mines, and the associated smelter (Ed - And we do love a schmelter , eh Neale) and was in operation from 1828 to 1861.

From our hotel we had a lovely view of the Parish Church of Saint Peter, and I heard the bell ring at 6am!

We had a wonderful dinner at the family run hotel, probably the best of all the hotel dinners on the trip. We started with beautifully grilled trout with grilled capsicum - one of the best fish dishes I have ever had. Most of the group felt the same about this dish, which used local trout caught just upstream from the hotel. For main we had pork cheek, with pan roasted potatoes and veggies in a pimenté sauce. The owner told us it was black Gascoyne pork, which had nearly disappeared, but was brought back by the locals over the past 20 years. Again, absolutely delicious. For dessert we had panna cotta with speculoos and caramel, also a fabulous dessert which we all loved. After dinner we were given a shot of Eau de Vie (our waiter jokingly called it Eau de Mort, which translates to water of death). It is a kind of spirit which has high alcohol content and is guaranteed to clear your sinuses and re-line your throat. I decided to skip this so Maria, who is quite partial to spirits, drank mine too. Opa!

A wonderful evening all round provided by a generous and professional team.Read more