The mega-efficient manager of the Goyatchea had warned us the weather would change, and that the ‘meteo’ as they call it, was not good for the next week, which was highly unusual as they’d had very little rain for the past 5 months. The storm began with some droplets in the evening but the heavens opened up good and proper during the night. It was our first experience of real rain in Brenda. The sliding door at the side is on the side I sleep on and I stupidly mustn’t have slammed it shut properly on my return from a nightly excursion to the toilet. I was faintly aware of a discomfort in my left shoulder during the night and then, more worryingly, a dampness. By 6am my shoulder had seized up and I realized it was not only cold but wet, as were half my pillow and the upper part of my thin Egyptian blanket (we’d left all warm clothes and blankets in Brittany expecting the rest of the journey to be all heat and sunshine). It was still chucking it down and by that time I’d lost all inhibitions and trotted off to the bathrooms in the shower-proof top holding the umbrella we’d luckily forgotten to leave in Brittany, flip-flops and nothing else. I came back for some shorts but I’d also lost all coordination so juggling with the soap bag, towel and brolly proved almost impossible after a night of trauma. Judith had one of those uncontrollable fits of laughter but managed to capture the moment!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We needed a nourishing warming breakfast after that and so it was good old porridge with bananas, prunes and apricot jam from Lidl which was starting to ferment. Amazingly, despite the weather, I did manage another swim before breakfast.   All good preparation for returning to year-round swimming at the Tooting Bec Lido in Streatham in the autumn (all being bueno).

As we leave, we spot another classic car, an old 1970s VW Beetle in an unusual pink and white get-up.

And so we left the charming Goyatchea and headed towards Biarritz and St Jean de Luz.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Considering the fact that the weather was showing no sign of improving, that we’d already had a brief glimpse of Biarritz, that it would be no fun in the relentless drizzle and that it would be likely to be busy for the ‘Waves & Wheels’ festival, we decided to skip Biarritz and take a longer look at St Jean de Luz just down the coast from it. We had driven through a little bit of Biarritz anyway the day we arrived at the bikers’ campsite and could sort of imagine what the rest of it would be like: part fin de siecle splendor and ‘belle epoque’ architecture and part surfer’s paradise.   Our son Simon had been on a trip with fellow-surfers from Newquay a few years ago and though he’d slipped on the boat on the way over and had cut his knee rather badly I remember him saying he found the waves so irresistible he had to go in. It was only when we realized afterwards how bad the cut had been that the full extent of his foolhardiness had become apparent. But then surfers are like mountaineers – why do you have to ride that wave? Because it’s there!

The drizzle has turned to heavy rain again by the time we reach St Jean de Luz. It really isn’t conducive to taking a leisurely stroll on the sea front or the city centre. We drive past the Grand Hotel and the magnificent long sandy beach all along the bay. The architecture looks strangely Alpine rather than what you’d expect in a seaside resort. We realize later that this is the characteristically Basque style of houses and we see echoes of it all the way down to Pamplona and Zaragossa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We drive past another bay in adjoining Cibourne. It’s still raining but the sea is calm as a lake, a perfect turquoise and looks very inviting. I’m very tempted to go in but decide it would be selfish and anti-social, especially as we’d agreed to stop there to have our sandwich and cup of tea. At that moment I spot a swimmer in a wetsuit swimming methodically round the bay and feel envious. He completes his swim in no time at all and is out of the water and getting changed right next to us, his wife and kids waiting patiently in the car. He’s thin as a rake. I give him the thumbs up and point to my baguette to ask whether he’d like us to make him one too? He says no so I wind down the window to talk to him. He’s a local and has that southern twang which you also find in Provence, though I’m not sure I’d be able to tell the exact difference between different southern accents. He’s training for a triathlon taking place here at the weekend, consisting of a 750 metre swim round the bay followed by a 25 km ride and 5 km run. I feel a pang of regret that I didn’t do more triathlons when I could and to start with a swim in this magnificent bay would have been fantastic.

 

We move on in the direction of San Sebastian in Spain expecting that to be our next point of interest. But only a few kilometres out of St Jean de Luz we find ourselves in an adjoining town with the puzzlingly Arabic-sounding name of Hendaya. Though again we only literally drive through it, it strikes us as a very pleasant place indeed and clearly a major focal point for surfers and sailing enthusiasts alike.   It had a nice feel about it and we decided we’d be happy spending a holiday en famille here sometime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We press on and before we know it, we’re over the Spanish border, without any border controls or specific point at which we realized we’d crossed it. The road seems suddenly busier and the scenery is not unlike Surrey or elsewhere in southern England, woody and slightly hilly. We arrive in San Sebastian and, like the brother and sister in Jean Cocteau’s Les Enfants Terribles who visited the Louvres by running straight through it just to be able to say they’d seen it, we again simply drove through it to get a feel of the place. Upon arriving, we glimpsed a statue – it could have been either Jesus or the Virgin Mary – atop a hill overlooking the city, reminiscent of Sao Paolo. It’s a busy, modern city with several fountains, which is something we hadn’t seen in any other French city in the South West, other than the Mirroir d’Eau in Bordeaux.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We press on further and the landscape becomes more dramatic. We’re going back into the Pyrenees, but on the Spanish side this time. We take the motorway heading for Pamplona but the climbs are still incredibly steep and the scenery is spectacular, particularly around Elduain, Irurtzun and Arakil. We reach some very high altitudes indeed, going other cloud-covered mountains. Glowing yellow broom lines the roads and motorways everywhere we look. An interesting historical detail Judith chanced upon was that broom was the symbol adopted by Geoffrey, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy, who married Matilda, daughter of Henry I. Their son Henry became Henry II of England and also adopted the broom, thus starting the Plantagenet line, the word originating from the Latin word for broom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Caravan Club book of campsites advised there was only one campsite around Pamplona – the Camping Ezcaba. The owners clearly took full advantage of this as this turned out to be our worst campsite experience to date. The pitches were badly maintained, the facilities extremely poor and the service indifferent. As it was late we decided to eat in the campsite restaurant but the food was reheated and lukewarm and the ‘recepcion and hospitalidad’ non-existent. We were made to feel our presence could barely be tolerated.

As if that wasn’t enough, the heavens opened up again that night – and this time it really did feel like ‘le grand deluge’. There was no let-up the entire night and we were finally forced to resort to using Brenda’s toilet for the first time during the night. With the poor condition of the pitches, as we were starting to stir in the morning, our Dutch neighbours got into difficulties trying to move off. They got seriously bogged down and had to be towed out by the campsite’s tractor. I managed to capture the moment, which looked very comical from the relative safety and dryness of our van. We fully expected to be punished for our wickedness by becoming stuck as well but we were mercifully spared.