Tuesday arrived with sunshine and blue skies, our fifty eighth wedding anniversary. Blimey, whoderthunkit way back then?

It was warm too so an al fresco breakfast sur la terrasse (spot the new mug matching the Basque colours of our chalet tablecloth. 😊)

Lovely as the blue skies were we were faced with a conundrum because of them. Mention the part of the Pays Basque we were in and people immediately mentioned the train a cremaillere (rack railway) that ran up the mountain our campsite was named after, La Rhune. I had Google earthed it and visited the website. Tickets with a guaranteed return (?) needed to be bought in advance online, return tickets not available at the bottom station…why? Tickets are non refundable so you are advised to check the weather before purchasing. But this is the Pyrenees and we know from experience how quickly the weather can change and the cloud cover come down. Plus Google earth showed one restaurant/cafe and a souvenir shop. So a full train means 200 odd people milling about on a mountain top looking at, or unable to, the views, queuing for food and/or drinks and buying Spanish souvenirs… because the station at the top straddles the Spanish/French frontier. Decisions, decisions. We’re a bit ‘far from the madding crowd’ on holiday and finally decided that spending 50+ euros on insecure public WiFi for an experience we were not convinced about…was not for us. Instead I showed Lou a col on the map I had scoped out the afternoon before, while he slept off that lunch, which looked rather lovely and would take us up to touching distance with Spain. Not having our passports with us precluded any adventures further on.

So that’s what we did. First stop the good boulangerie for filled baguettes for our lunch and then off to the Col de Lizarrieta.

The drive up was beautiful. First through farmland with occasional fields of sheep (source of the delicious brebis cheeses of the area), some with flocks of snow white birds that we struggled to identify. Then up through beautiful deciduous woods. We weren’t high enough to have purely pine forests. In fact, Lou was flabbergasted that our campsite was only at 60 metres above sea level when chez nous we are 140. We had assumed we would be much higher. The col we were climbing to was 442 metres.

As the road got narrower and the hairpins much sharper I began to sound the horn, not for warning oncoming cars but descending cyclists who, judging by our cyclist, love swooping down mountain roads.

Just as Mr McGregor wondered out loud if we were on the wrong road we came out onto the col, with a large stone stele as witness with some indecipherable Basque carved into it.

The next thing we noticed were the cyclists, skinny, tanned and all different ages, some arriving from the direction of Spain.

The sky was still blue and the day warm so after photographing the views we could glimpse between the trees we sat in the sun and enjoyed coffee, sitting between cyclists taking a breather and a lone hiker who wandered out of the forest. Checking the map later we were actually taking our coffee in Spain while our car was parked in France!

Off to one side of the car park was a board explaining the ‘circuit des palombieres de Sare’, created in 2017, enshrining an ancient method of catching wood pigeons which, although forbidden in other parts of France, is allowed here as maintaining tradition. On our map you could just make out the track following the frontier.

On the opposite side of the car park was a shelter decorated inside with pictures of the migrating birds that fly across the col and information provided by a local bird protection society. A wonderful demonstration of the contrariness of different ideas of conservation. I picked up a couple of leaflets and dropped some euros in their collection box.

Other photos on the shelter walls were of migrations of a different kind, refugees from the civil war in Spain and one of the ‘night workers’, a coy name for smugglers, a trade that is written about with a certain pride in local tourist brochures.

Sitting in the wall, facing the view, we ate our sandwiches and enjoyed the peace and wonderful fresh air.

My studying of the chalet brochures had prompted the idea of visiting the home of the celebrated red pepper, Espelette, in the afternoon. It should be possible to buy our favourite Ossau-Iraty cheese from the producer as well while we were there.

Our route took us through Saint -Pee-sur-Neevelle, a pretty village with a complicated one way system around the centre. Past more fortified churches, tiny villages of white houses with lots of red shutters, pelote courts and fields of sheep.

Espelette, when we finally got there, was heaving! Luckily, we found our way to a carpark where someone reversed out of a space just as we arrived..result.

The centre of town was pedestrianised and bore no relation to the picture I had in my head as Google earth had shown it minus pedestrians and open to cars ..must have been taken in the winter.

Fortunately I had remembered to bring the relevant brochures so looked for street names which helped us find the best pepper shop, if the paperwork was to be believed. It certainly looked the part with its traditional red peppers decorating the facade.

We had great fun deciding which pots of pepper to buy and then got lost among the pates and other related foodstuffs. There was a tress of bright red peppers bought for our neighbours who were holding our house keys for us.

Over much needed cold drinks, it being a little warmer than anticipated, I noticed the cheese shop from the brochure was just across the street. So a hefty chunk of scrumptious brebis cheese joined the peppers. Then it was back for a snooze before going out to a nearby hotel for a delicious meal celebrating putting up with each other for so long!

I was very chuffed to see my nickname spelled correctly, it is so often written as ‘Line’ here in France. Many a time I’ve resisted the urge to give a lesson on the use of ‘magic’ e. 🙂

Then a short step back to our chalet with the last of the light towards the Atlantic coast…