Peter Robins, his website

Arranged to combine the opening of the Landes section of the Voie Littorale at Mimizan with a week’s walking in the area, but the opening was postponed at the last minute. Add to this the fact that the weather forecast of warm weather was correct, and the trip was not a 100% success, but I did at least walk a further 140km or so of Chemin de St Jacques - Landes section of Tours route plus coastal route Bayonne-Hendaye - even if not what I’d originally intended.

See blog for Easter 2004 trip for section Bordeaux-Labouheyre.

Flight Southampton-Bordeaux (Flybe) 1 hour late, so rather tedious wait at airport. Seemed to be having aircraft problems, as on Bombardier Dash turboprop instead of jet normally run on that route. Partly cloudy flight, and on wrong side of aircraft to see coastline and work out position. Bus to station, and into one of numerous hotels nearby - cheap rate as weekend, when hotels generally largely empty. Tremendous downpour just minutes after I arrived.

Problem with starting from Labouheyre is that few trains stop there, so had to get up for 6.35. This arrived 7.23. L. being a largish village, I expected there to be at least one cafe open, but though I wandered around for quite some time I failed to find one, though I did find a boulangerie to get something to eat.

The church is dedicated to St Jacques (as is the fountain), and has rather a curious tower (apparently a C19 semaphore tower), though it’s largely a post-medieval reworking of a romanesque building. There is now a pilgrim refuge in L.: a room in someone’s home with space for 6 people.

Having failed to find a coffee, I set off on the road S, and soon went wrong, crossing the autoroute too early - though this may very well have been my fault for not paying attention rather than any problem with the marking. I crossed on the road to Escource, but soon headed off into the forest. Though this was a longer way round than the official route, it was probably more pleasant, as I saw deer and heard woodpeckers and cuckoos rather than the roar of passing traffic.

I rejoined the official route, but detoured off to Cap de Pin for a belated coffee in one of the truckers stops there. Heard Basque there.

Soon after C de P, the route leaves the side of the autoroute (at last), and heads off along a forest track. (See Amis Landais site for route description.) Another walker was ahead of me, whom I soon caught up with and accompanied for a while. He was heading all the way to Santiago, having started from his home in the Vendée.

The track is dead straight for many km, but at the hamlet of Lesbordes the marking heads off to the left along more attractive paths and tracks. Although the skies had been cloudless early on, by now clouds had come up and I even sheltered under a tree for a short shower.

Further along, I went seriously astray by following yellow arrows which turned out to be put up by forestry workers and nothing whatever to do with the route. This led me too far south and probably added some 3-4km, which put me out of sorts. I even had to get out the compass to work out which direction I was supposed to head.

Eventually arrived in the village of Onesse at 12.30 and had a couple of beers sitting in the backyard of a small bar in the sunshine which had now reappeared. Mine host asked me if I was going to St-Jacques; I replied with my usual spiel that I was sur la route de St-Jacques but not en route pour St-Jacques.

The official route makes several detours off the road to Lesperon, and I’d originally planned to ignore these and just continue on the road all the way - there is little traffic on this road. However, I had plenty of time, and dawdled along the official route which follows attractive paths through the forest. I still arrived in Lesperon before 4.

I’d planned to stop in the small hotel next to the late-medieval fortified church (also dedicated to St Jacques), but this was shut up tight with no sign of life, so I went into a neighbouring bar for a drink. I then decided to head for the village’s other hotel, a **, but this turned out to be on the far side of the main road and a good 3km from the village, so I was rather heated and footsore when I eventually got there, to be greeted by a beaming ‘Un pelerin!’ by the owner. He told me a Dutch pilgrim had been there the night before, so I was obviously not the first to make the hike over from the village.

I took a room with a bath (€54) and wallowed in that for a long time, especially as I’d forgotten to trim my toenails before starting and one had cut into the next toe bloodying my sock.

A good dinner in the hotel - just as well, as there was nowhere else to eat! There are a couple of chambres d’hôte in the village, including one on the way in, so this might be an alternative to traipsing over to the hotel.

An advantage of travelling at this time of year is the long daylight, remaining light until after 10.

Despite going astray twice, the marking was generally very good. Because of going astray, and going to the hotel, my total walking for the day was more like 40km than the official 32km.

Although the hotel was not far from the main road, the room was on the other side, so was quiet with only birdsong to disturb the peace, so a good night.

I decided returning to the official route in the village was too much extra walking, so headed S along the tracks, rejoining the official route again past Taller - a very long short-cut. After leaving the main road, I saw no-one apart from one fellow in a lonely house who came out to see what his dog was barking at. Skies again cloudless, but route largely in shade of forest.

I had hoped there would be a bar or shop at the small village of Gourbera - there was a bar, but it was closed, in fact, looked the sort of place that only opened occasionally. After Gourbera, the route forks: I took the direct route rather than the longer one via St-Vincent-de-Paul. This continued through the forest, partly in sun, partly in shade, but by now the first slight inclines appear - can’t really call them hills, just slight humps, but no longer completely flat as in the real Landes. The Amis guide warns of a dog in one hamlet, but I had no problems with dogs.

The route into Dax is unfortunately cut off by the bypass and has to make a detour via the main road, which is pretty tedious, especially when the temperature is mounting to 30° as it was by now. The waymarking uses side streets to avoid the main road; unfortunately this does not pass any shops or bars until a small supermarket just before the church of St-Paul-les-Dax, so if you’re looking for this, as I was, sticking to the main road is probably the better bet. I raided the drinks cabinet in said supermarket and sat in the shade of the churchyard recovering my cool. While I was there, a cyclist, probably en route to Santiago, also arrived and left again, but he was a way from me and we did not speak.

The church has some fine romanesque carvings on the outside of the apse at the E end; it also has a massive tower at the W end, but the nave in the middle is a dull relatively modern construction. There is now a pilgrim refuge here, but I headed for the spa town of Dax on the other side of the river and took a hotel room there.

Dax is a hot-water spring developed since Roman times (Aquae Tarbellicae, from which the somewhat odd modern name comes), and is full of thermal hotels where people on cure lounge around in bathrobes. You can sample the water in the main fountain in the town centre, and it really is hot.

33km

Temperatures still warm overnight, so kept window open and was bothered by mosquitoes buzzing around, and woke up with a rather blotched face. Temperatures of 30°+ forecast, and the final hot and sweaty stretch into Dax had given me a small blister on the ball of my left foot, so I decided to (a) have a day off, and (b) go to the coast where it would be slightly cooler. See Saturday’s entry for continuation of this route.

So a lazy morning and a midday train to Bayonne. Lazy lunch in riverside restaurant, and small but not too expensive room in my favourite Bayonne hotel: the Grand. Afternoon really hot - definitely not walking weather. Everyone seeks out the shady side of the street; fortunately, there are plenty of colonnaded streets in the old town. Disappointed to find the sagarno eguna (day of cider, as I’m sure you all know) was the previous weekend, so I missed by 4 days.

Bayonne is one of those towns that I’ve changed my opinion on over the years. When I first visited it, I didn’t like it much - seemed a bit seedy and run-down. Now I like it: it’s not on the coast and has no especial tourist attractions, so it escapes the hordes that descend on Biarritz or St-Jean-de-Luz. On the other hand, it has plenty of history, and is one of those with long links with England. Its cathedral is not one of the best, but has some nice touches; I particularly like the Adam-and-Eve window with the serpent wearing a medieval PhD cap - who says church builders have no sense of humour!

Supper picnic of quiche and large bottle of beer from French Flanders (goudale - literally, good ale - from Douai) in park.

Blister having now gone down, up early and off along Nive towpath. 3 paths created by the Pyrenées-Atlantique Amis run along here: to Hendaye, to St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, and direct to Pamplona via the Baztan. Officially they start at the cathedral, but the marking does not start until further out. I decided to take the coastal one to Hendaye, on the assumption it would be cooler by the coast. Judging from what I saw, the paths are all well-marked. Sketch maps and descriptions on their website.

The coast path soon leaves the river and heads W towards the airport and Biarritz station. This is largely along roads at first, including a very nasty bit where you have to cross over the main ring road, particularly bad for me as I hit the rush hour. There’s a pleasant bit along the airport perimeter fence (the opposite side of the airport from the terminal buildings), and then some more roadside walking before some quieter lanes. Eventually you get out of the Bayonne-Anglet-Biarritz conurbation.

Just before Bidart is the only bit that’s actually near the coast - very hazy when I was there because of the heat, starting to build again after the early morning mist had dissipated.

Bidart has a typical Basque church, with 3 wooden galleries and a model ship hanging from the ceiling. It also has a wooden statue of St James, though I suspect this is a later addition. Bidart also has a pilgrimage chapel of St Catherine, though I did not visit this.

The route heads inland at Bidart, and follows a mixture of quiet lanes and tracks past some posh villas. At one point, the marking was absent, but I continued in the general direction and eventually found it again. Heard an oriole here; first time I’ve heard one of those for a long time.

The marked route follows the river estuary into St-Jean, but it might be more ‘authentic’ to arrive on the road and enter the old town via the Rue St Jacques.

Quite a short day by my standards (28km officially) but glad to get out of the heat and into a hotel room for a good soak in a bath. Hotels in St-Jean, a touristy place, rather on the pricey side. Plenty of good restaurants to choose from, and still hot at 10 in the evening.

St Jean too has a typical Basque church, one of the largest, also with galleries and a ship hanging from the ceiling. This is where Louis XIV was married.

Only a short walk to Hendaye (13.2km officially), but off early before heat gets going. Firstly, over the bridge to Ciboure, where the marked route goes past a plaque marking the former Hôpital St Jacques. The route tries hard to avoid the main road, and at one point I lost the marking and made a lengthy loop before arriving back where I started, which didn’t please me, especially as the heat was starting to build.

Generally, however, this is a nice stretch through attractive rolling country, past a mixture of Basque farms and villas. The final bit before descending into Hendaye is through a garrigue type of scrub, where the route crosses the GR10 Pyrenean traverse. Very welcome too was the (relatively) cool breeze coming off the sea at Hendaye.

The route descends into the town via the Rue Santiago, passing the Hotel Santiago, which looked ok, and is reasonably priced. It then crosses the Pont St Jacques (which has name plaques you can photograph) into Irún and Spain, where the discrete little markers on the French side give way to Spanish waymarkers who have gone berserk, planting large yellow arrows everywhere. Are the Spanish really not capable of finding the way without such intrusive aids?

I immediately crossed over the old bridge back into France again (so was in Spain for all of 2 minutes), and had a sandwich and a beer in one of the cafes opposite the station before catching the train back to Bayonne. Though I’d not seen any pilgrims on my route, several obvious pilgrims came out of the station while I was there and set off for the Spanish side. There were also quite a few mountain walkers around.

So, would I recommend this short stretch Bayonne-Hendaye? Well, it is a densely populated strip of land with main roads to avoid, and several sections are frankly unattractive. On the other hand there are attractive bits too, and it’s generally well marked, with a free guide available on the Amis’ website. Despite its touristiness, St-Jean-de-Luz is an attractive place with a nice beach if you’re interested in such things (which I’m not). Bayonne is also a much more satisfying and ‘authentic’ place to start than either Hendaye or Irún. So on balance, I vote in favour.

At Bayonne, it was still hot, so I sat on a cafe terrasse for a long time debating where to go next. I thought about booking into a hotel, and trying the first section of the route to St-Jean-Pied-de-Port the next day, but eventually decided to take a train to Pau. Then, if it was still hot the next day, I could take the bus up to the Somport where it would be much cooler.

So, the 16.22 train got me to Pau for 17.32, and I caught the (free!) funicular up to the town just in time to get a list of hotels from the tourist office before it closed. I got a large, reasonably priced room with a bath in a back-street **.

Pau (on the Arles route) is the departmental capital and has a chateau to visit. It also has strong links with England, owing its C19 growth to popularity with wintering English people, who created golf courses and even cricket fields; the golf is still there, but whether they still play cricket? However, its main attraction remains the splendid views of the Pyrenees from the Boulevard des Pyrenées, which I remembered from previous visits many years ago.

I wandered around for quite a while looking for the restaurant quarter and eventually found it near the chateau. A good meal, but rather more than I wanted to pay. I commented to the owner on the heat and how I was glad not to have to work in a kitchen in such weather. She said it was better than the day before, when it had been ‘atroce’.

Very large TV set in the hotel room, showing 16 channels of rubbish.

This morning cloudy and noticeably cooler, so decided not to head up to the Somport, but take the train back to Dax to continue on the route south. This time the Pyrenees were hiding themselves and were not visible from the boulevard.

The markings lead over the river and to the cathedral at Dax; though this is a generally rather dull building, it contains the remains of the C12/C13 portal with sculptures of the Last Judgement and statues of the apostles, including, of course, St James.

I must have been so excited by this that I missed the markings, which apparently take a side route to the next village of St-Pandelon, and ended up batting along the road - easy to follow, but rather tedious.

From St-P, the route follows quiet lanes to the village of Cagnotte, where the church is what’s left of the former C12 Benedictine abbey. In the village is a restaurant/bar called the St Jacques, where I stopped off for a beer and sandwich. The owner is obviously interested in the route, as there is a display on one of the walls, and an invitation to sign a livre d’or. If you prefer to have a picnic, there is a nice little picnic site by the abbey church, which is further on, by a little river; here there is a water tap, and a mapboard showing the chemins de St-Jacques.

From here, the route at last leaves tarmac and takes a nice track through a forest, where the route forks, one fork going the long way round to Sorde, the other direct to Peyrehorade. I picked the latter and arrived in time for the train to, yes, Bayonne again. There is a *** hotel in P. (and a pilgrim refuge in the abbey buildings at Sorde), but I had to get back to Bordeaux for my flight the next day, so sadly could not complete the route to St-Palais.

After Dax, the terrain becomes decidedly hillier, as you leave the Landes and start to approach the mountains. However, the mountains were only just visible in the haze from just before Peyrehorade. No doubt in clearer weather they would be visible considerably before that.

Dinner in one of the many restaurants along the Nive, having a Basque speciality called axoa (the ‘x’ is pronounced like English ’sh’, I was told) of veal. No idea what this means, but it tasted good. For once, I sat inside, as it was getting rather cool for sitting outside.

22km

8.40 TGV to Bordeaux, into centre on the new tram, and wander along part of St-Jacques route didn’t walk last time, i.e. to St-Seurin, where admired the statue of St J on the S portal.

Had intended to do some shopping, but the Virgin Megastore seemed to be the only thing open, so sat around in various places, including the Place Gambetta, where a pilgrim came past. He glanced briefly at me, and then set his eyes firmly on the middle distance.

So flew off from Bordeaux airport again, just as the French were queuing up to vote ‘Non’ to the EU constitution. Cloud all the way back except for the approach into Southampton, where fine views over the Needles and the New Forest.