Corinne CrawfordAfter a day of rest, Igor planned for us to walk to the neighboring town on the coast, Getaria. Igor, Belen and Ollie, along with Ollie’s dog Zoot met up in the mid morning. It was a beautiful walk through woods and meadows and vineyards over the hill and back down to the town. We just explored a bit then walked the road, which had a walking path adjacent to it the entire 45 minutes back to Zarautz. The plan was to hike up into the mountains the next day, which typically as a sort of party on Sundays with various little huts with drinks and music along they way but as the day went on and we looked at the weather report, it was going to be just too hot for that much exertion so we decided that the next day would be a visit to just the other side of the border into France to check out the coastal towns there.
The Basque region encompasses the northern part of Spain and extends into France and you might hear Spanish, French or Basque in any of those regions. As a matter of fact, many people in the regain would like to be an independent state and you see many Basque flags either in addition to or in place of the Spanish flag. One banner in the main plaza said “Remember – you are not in Spain, you are not in France, you are in Basque”
Ollie picked us up in his camper van, again with Zoot in tow, and we headed on the road for the 40 minutes or so to France. We parked and then walked along the shore to Saint Jean-De-Luz just enjoying the day, going to a farmers market and walking along the waterfronts. But the day was super hot. By the time we got to a place for lunch, traditional mussels absolutely soaked in butter and garlic – yum, I was so hot and thirsty that I had to intake about 2 bottles of water before I could stomach anything else. I perked back up though and enjoyed a beer and the mussels.
