Day 48 – 26 August 2023 – San Sebastian, Spain day 2

Another delicious breakfast this morning, the food is really good again with another great selection. We are on the road by 9am as we are crossing the border into France this morning & we need to beat the traffic of people from all over Europe returning back home after their holidays in Spain & Portugal. School holidays are ending.

We cross the border with no hassles other than the bus having to pay the road toll, there is no traffic backlog & we drive through to Biarritz in France. Our first stop is a lighthouse where we get a great view looking back over Biarritz beach & the city itself. Our local guide, a Basque person from San Sebastian, tells us that the normal population of Biarritz is 30,000 & it swells to 90,000 during summer school holidays. There are large apartment buildings overlooking the beach the full length. The style of houses in France is different than that of Spain, with different designs, different window quantity & shapes & different colours.

Next stop is the main street of Biarritz & our guide takes us for a walk around explaining some of the different notable buildings & the real estate prices are eye-watering. He points out Maison Adam, the shop where the macaron was originally created & it is doing a roaring trade with a line up out the door. Le Bellevue is a former casino built in 1858 & is now an up-market motel, it has a great location overlooking the Biarritz beachfront. Another shop that catches my eye is called 1001 Fromages, a cheese shop with the most amazing variety of cheeses.

Our guide then takes us through the Biarritz Market, there is a great selection of fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses & seafood. The seafood is more expensive than we are used to, for example, large prawns are 70 Euros per kilo (around 100 Australian dollars), in Australia they are around $30 per kilo. A little more walking around on or own before finding our way back to the bus meeting place for the drive to the nearby Saint Jean-de-Luz.

Saint Jean-de-Luz has different architecture again & a different streetscape & seems a little more vibrant as it is more crowded. Our guide takes us into a church where a former king & queen of France were married in 1660, Louis XIV & Marie Therese. The church is very nice inside, another variation, however, this one has tiered wooden balconies on three sides to fit more people in. We get guided around a few more streets with more interesting things explained before we are given a couple of hours to have lunch & explore on our own.

I had spotted someone having a pot of mussels earlier so we go back there & manage to get a table inside, everyone prefers to sit outside in summer. We order a pot of mussels, grilled squid with salad & a glass of red wine once we get past the language barriers. Tereza & I shared the meal, absolutely delicious & reasonably priced. The building is really old & the ceiling has exposed beams, the restaurant is called Le Fandango Brasserie.

We explore on our own a little more after lunch, look at the fishing boat harbour, walk out to the river mouth & look at the paintings displayed by artists in one of the squares, some of the artists are very good. We then meet up with the rest of the group & walk back to the bus together, we come across a bride just walking into the church to get married followed by four cute little bridesmaids.

Back to San Sebastian & we settle into our room again, I have a little snooze as it is raining outside, then after the rain stops we go for a walk. Just down the hill from our hotel is a former Queens’ summer palace, it is only about 600 metres away & is a very pleasant walk. The palace commands a great view over San Sebastian & the bay, now the palace is owned by the local government & used for other purposes. We read the story boards about the history & construction, it is very interesting.

As we get back to the hotel there is a crowd of cameras & media waiting for someone. Two black cars pull up & people get out, we don’t know who they are. The young man stops & chats briefly to the media whilst posing for photos. The media scrum moves inside the hotel foyer & we ask who he is. A soccer player that has transferred from England club Arsenal to a Spanish club. Don’t know his name. We walked a little over 6 kilometres today, another great day.