Au revoir, Biarritz!!

Well, Happy Friday!
I'm sitting in the square outside the tourist bureau waiting for our bus to Spain and pirating internet from the pub across the road. Ah, sweet sweet WiFi.

A 'soaperie'!

We're both glad to be heading off today. Whilst Biarritz has been nice, 14 days has been more than plenty. Strangely cool here, too. Only about 21 today and the sky is less clear than a usual Winter's day in Perth! A shock to the system after Greece.

We're staying in what is hopefully a cool little hostel in San Sebastian and will be looking wide eyed at people as we try to forget our French and learn some Spanish/Basque/Catalan... Whatever they actually speak there! Hoping for some more promising waves and a change of menu.

Au revoir, Epicurie!!

Lots of little dos here! Some are cute....

Some, not so much..

Fete de Bayonne

Taking in the sights and sounds in Bayonne

The sun has just come out. :) Cheers!!

I have been enjoying le cedre (cider) here!

This post brought to you by Bistrot Barriot. Merci!

Lac Marion en Velo

Bon jour!
Well, we have had a busy couple of days!
Yesterday we hired velos (bicycles) and cycled to a big lake with lovely parkland around it. This was a bit of an adventure, what with driving on the right, the non accessible footpaths and lots of one way streets. The real clincher, though, was having to go round a round-a-bout anticlockwise.

Some of the narrow sidewalks even had trees growing in the middle, making cycling even more of a challenge!

After the biggest hill of my life we did get there and spent a lovely midday wondering around and taking photos. In the afternoon we hired boards again (brand new 8'2 NSPs) and headed out for a surf. The conditions were worse than they looked from the beach, but we did manage to catch the window where the onshore conditions glassed off and we had some nice shape for an hour or so as the tide came in. Plus more swell :)
We surfed from 5-7pm and you'd swear it was about 4pm when we got out. So bright here + the daylight savings makes it pretty ridiculous.

Everything happens later here. It gets dark at 10pm. People eat anywhere from 7-11pm. They party til 4, which they can do, because work doesn't start 'til 10am. You can't get breakfast until 10 - when they bring out the tapas and vin for lunch! The first buses are at 10! This morning we had an appointment for a massage and had to get a taxi because we had no other way of making the 'rendez vous' on time.

James on 'le ponton' on Lac Marion

The massage. We both had our first experience with shiatsu today, which was nice, but not as good as a regular one. I espied a Spotlight like fabric store opposite the beauty salon, but when we went to check it out, it was closed from 12-2 for siesta!

After our massages, walking back to the bustop, we went through the shopping mall for the region and discovered... the biggest shop ever!! It's like Coles, Kmart, Liquorland, Retravision, JB hifi and a vaccuum cleaner shop all rolled into one! You can buy whiskey, a cured ham, bikinis, a new mobile and have your bike repaired all in the one shop! Needless to say, we had to run around in there for a while, revelling in the non-village-ness of it all and gushing at the price of bottled water and such like.

No surfing today as the massage has made us feel like we've already had a full work out and it was well and truly stormy with ~15knt onshore winds and rain.
Not very appetising.

This evening instead we chanced upon the night market and found something that was appetising. We gorged ourselves on Indienne!! Pakoras and samosas with spices in them! Washed down with fresh smoothies well and truly did the trick. We have come to appreciate Australia's diverse cuisine. We are just so lucky that on any given night in Perth you can have good Italian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian, Lebanese, Japanese, African, even French or Greek. Everywhere we have been so far has had a pretty limited menu and no international food to speak of (Save for the hideous Italian in Athens - which we will not speak of). Tonight was the first night we've seen something other than standard, French-Basque fare.

This is a little scary, I know. The depth of field makes it look like blue screen for one. Plus my expression makes me look like something out of Jurassic Park. But would you look at the size of those hydrangeas!!

The park around Lac Marion was divided into different sections with living, growing rooms to explore.

They do have lots of great seafood here, and terrific bread, yummy berries, plus a slightly unhealthy fascination with pork. Last night we had it served three different ways, none of which included 'cooked'. A thin chorizo, serrano, which is like copper, and a third variety, which I think was basically just salty-raw. It's hard to know. They are known for chillies and have a million postcards showing bunches drying from shuttered windows, but none of our meals have been spicy. I am craving garlic and plan to cook  a meal when we get to the hostel in Spain. I only hope that I can buy garlic at el mercado!

Kombi Watch

There's lots of VWs here! Given that Europe is all joined together, it's quite easy for them to get here from almost anywhere else. We've seen number plates from Brittain, Luxenmburg, Switzerland, Estonia, Netherlands... all down here for the Summer holidays.
Enjoy!

Incidentally, this guy gets the parking award.

This may or may not be a VW... But we should just do this next time we go down south.

Le surf

Le surf has been petite. Petite petite. But that is what we're here for so I was out there again on Thursday. It was cold, gloomy and onshore. It even rained at one point. Slightly less crowded and there were a few waist high waves when the tide came rushing in and the people went rushing out. James wisely decided to stay dry and, armed with the camera, recorded some of the other things going on on this French Beach...

Lots of sandcastles

This one even has a Granny-flat

There is some terrific beach fashion to be spotted.

Lots of beach tennis, volleyball and skimboarding.

There are always lifeguards on patrol. When the tide comes in they tip their lookout tower over and carry it up the stairs to the road.

They have flags for everything here. Periodically they make PA announcements about something important. Occasionally they bother to do it in English but most of the time I can't tell whether they are saying "Swimmers between the blue flags only" or "Everyone out! There is a shark eating a whale."

There was even some surfing!! Actually, this is Biarritz, there were about 300 people surfing!

Some impressive tandem work!

The 8' South Point I rented.

Still busy even though the surface quality isn't great. That's Spain in the background!

Iconic View - clouds looming

Bon Marché

Whilst a thriving tourism and holiday destination, Biarritz maintains a village feel, especially in places like the markets. We found a nice little market a short walk from our hotel, which presumably operates in much the same way as it has for many generations.

Old men arrive early to purchase their daily baguette, stopping to drink vino at 9am. Brash women haggle over the price of a bushel of leeks, never really agreeing to the price.

The market thrives, packed with shoppers from open to close. There's every conceivable fruit, vegetable and animal produce available, and at such reasonable prices.

Just how much does a bushel of leeks cost, anyway?

Such sweet treats! Berries of the boldest blues and bright reds... cherries, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries... they're all here, by the bucket.

Berry good! Berry delicious!!

Tomatoes the size of my head are heaped in mounds, alongside fresh mushrooms, local radishes and haricot vert.

La grande tomate

I wouldn't want to eat EVERYTHING in here... It would take some courage to order a bag of this hearty offering.

J'adore?? Look up coeurs.

Stinky cheeses line the shelves, wafting their own particular brand of awesome over the crowd. A good way to clear a crowd, these bad boys are potent. They've really tended to their moulds in here.

Phwoar, who cut their cheese?

Less exciting than their Dutch equivalent, these fungi fill baskets aplenty. I can only assume it's some kind of mushroom, but I actually haven't ever seen anything quite like it. Mum will know.

Trippy.

Not hungry? A bouquet of fresh cut flowers is yours for the taking. The picture doesn't do justice to the sheer brilliance of colour on display.

Pretty colours.

Fruits de la mer! Poisson et le krabbe, all caught only hours before being displayed in the seafood markets.

Turbot, anyone?

Shrimp butt.

Check out this sucker. The thing was about a metre long, and looked bloody frightening.

ROOOOAAAAAARRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!

HAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!

It makes me want to make better use of our own markets, back home. It was a nice little taste of Fremantle, in a way. I guess wherever we are on the Earth, we all need to eat, and land and sea provide.

Fishy num num?

Afternoon Delights

The food is so good here that it is deserving of a dedicated post, or three. We have been making the most of every meal and like hobits, have been ensuring we have elevensies and afternoon tea as the mood strikes. The newest thing we tried was Gateau Basque - a local (basque) cake made with almond meal. It's really nice and comes in cerise - with a red fruit jam in the middle - or blanc with apple in it.

Europeans appear to love nutella. You can get it on just about anything. James is finishing (read: dribbling on the footpath) a crepe with chocolate, peach and almonds while I shamelessly devour a fresh waffle smeared with nutella.

The p'tite creperie where we have enjoyed savoury and sweet crepes as well as the best omeletes we've ever had. Along with passble coffee - which is good for here.

So much eye & mouth candy!!

More macarons - flavours include standard; coffee, choc, vanilla, but also lavender/apricot and so on. More investigation is needed.

Waiting nicely in the chocolatier

Balle de Golf anyone??

James has just forgotten how to say his order in French...

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!!

 

Today we went to a 'Salon de The' for goodies and expensive cups of tea. We have been craving tea - it was god awful in Greece with UHT milk and here they don't really drink it. We paid 5euros each for a pot of tea for two. But we had delectable treats to enjoy with it. I had a raspberry and chocolate tart complete with a miniature, pink macaron on the top! James had the richest chocolate, mousse brownie ever concocted. Here is a small sample of the other sugary treasures they had on offer...

Torte with alpine strawberries, red currents, blackberries...

Every one is a work of art

Mixed berries, peach slices and pistachios.

Worth every euro.