3. An early test

Day 4, April 17th.  0 miles, Île de Ré.  13C – 17C, sunny, biting wind

Our first night’s sleep in the roof tent is, by any measure, a disaster. 

The zip on Ralph’s sleeping bag breaks, so it unzips, and he freezes in the middle of the night.  Poor chap then wakes everyone up trying to fix it.  Nina and I haven’t got enough bedding tonight so we are cold as well – it’s down to about 6C in the middle of the night.  And for some unbeknown reason we let Laurie have pineapple juice yesterday – whenever we do that, he’s sick – and tonight is no exception.   He is sick – twice – at 1am and 4am, necessitating lengthy clean-ups and the rapid conversion of our washing up bowl to sick-bucket.

It's a relief when the sun comes up at 8am.  Bleary eyed, we focus on breakfast and our plans for the day.  Laurie needs to recover, so we settle on Ralph and I hiring bikes to explore Île de Ré whilst Nina and Laurie chill out in the sunshine.

Rarely have I liked such a flat place more.  It has a sleepy, bucolic charm to it; we cycle (on some of its many cycle paths) past little farms, immaculately tended vineyards, through sweet-smelling pine woods, and then past mile-upon-mile of rectangular salt beds, each one framed by a vibrant seam of oilseed rape flowers. 

We told Nina that we’d grab a snack whilst we’re out.  At 1pm we pass our fifth eatery –  basically a wooden barn with a few tables in the sunshine.  Like the four preceding ones, it sells nothing but fresh oysters.  What can you do?  We stop, order a dozen (plus a nice cold beer and lemonade) and enjoy literally the best oysters we’ve ever eaten, enjoying the serenity of our surroundings.

We cycle back contentedly – and tell Nina we had literally no choice but to stop and eat oysters.  Possibly the only place in the world one could make this claim, without bending the truth.  I take over Laurie-care and we send Nina out on the bike so she can enjoy the same experience for herself.

We’re early to bed tonight.  Laurie still poorly, the rest of us in need of some catch-up from the previous night’s exertions.  Hopefully night two of many dozens ahead of us will render an improvement…

Day 5, April 18th.  0 miles, Île de Ré.  13C – 18C, early showers, sunny, biting wind

Hurray!  Laurie is on the mend. Having fixed Ralph’s sleeping bag the night before, and re-worked our bedding arrangements, we all sleep much better, and wake up refreshed, not frozen, and with our hips still working.

Whilst we’ve done a lot of immersive French with the boys so far, this morning marks the first proper go at home schooling.  Takes a little bit of persuasion.  “If you don’t do it here, we’ll send you back to Elstree to board for the term and we’ll carry on without you”.  A gentle reminder from Nina seems to do the trick.

We decide to extend our stay by another night, so Laurie can enjoy the sights of Île de Ré.  I go to the reception and talk to the friendly young receptionist in my best French.

“Serait-il possible prolonger notre sejour, s’il vous plaît?”

“Of course, for how many nights?”

“Seulement pour une nuit”

“That’s fine, would you like to pay now?”

“Oui s’il vous plait.”

“No problem.  Would you like to pay by cash or card?”

I wander back to our car, where the boys are head down, studiously focussed on their French.  I wonder to myself what the point is.

Later, we cycle to St Martin de Ré for lunch.  It’s impossibly pretty; narrow, cobbled streets lined by ancient, pastel cream two storey houses, meticulously adorned with flowering wisterias, vines and topiary.

We lunch in a suitably idyllic, tree-shaded little square – there’s barely any traffic barring bicycles.  We sit at a rickety table outside a shabby looking taverna and enjoy a fabulous lunch of gravadlax, curried langoustine, fried shrimp and fish balls. 

We cycle home quietly, lounge in the sunshine on our (surprisingly robust – let’s see how they’re doing in a month’s time…) inflatable sofas, then wander off to the (vast) beach for an hour to enjoy the late afternoon sun. 

Day 6, April 19th.  240 miles, Île de Ré to Capbreton.  12C – 22C, sunny, getting warmer, still windy

Today we leave Île de Ré to continue south.  We’ve rather fallen in love with the place – if we could bottle it up and take it with us, we would.  That said, we do contemplate what it might be like in August, when it’s full of angry Parisians trampling over each other to get into the restaurants, and treating the place like we treat Cornwall.

Heading south again, it gets warmer still. We stop for lunch in Bordeaux.  The French really are blessed with cities like this.  We park in an underground car park (another nervy moment and Nina guides us slowly in, but we fit comfortably under the 2.65m barrier) and wander through the impossibly grand, 18th century Place de la Bourse, and select, with great difficulty, a spot for lunch.  The world capital of wine and gastronomy does not disappoint, even with a relatively budget-conscious lunch of pizzas, steak tartare and Caesar salad (plus une verre du vin blanc de Bordeaux, obviously).

We’re keen to buy another Kindle, and some up to date road maps, to assist with home-schooling and route planning respectively.  We find a FNAC (department store) on Rue Saint-Catherine, and a helpful shop assistant.  Maps are easy, and they have Kobos – basically non-Amazon Kindles.  Will do the same job.  We decide to buy one – but then – zut alors!  French logic strikes.  They only have a brand-new model in stock and our apologetic shop-assistant explains:

“I’m sorry, it is too new.  We do have them in stock, but we must wait another 30 hours before we can sell them.”  

He smiles and gives us a Gallic shrug. 

Back in the car at 4pm, and we drive on towards Hossegor.  We’ve left it a bit late to find a campsite, and Laurie is still in recovery mode, so we elect to find a B&B for a few nights, and book one in next door Capbreton.  Our drive takes us through the vast Landes des Gascogne national park – about the size of Devon and Cornwall combined, home to (by local estimates) some 20 million maritime pine trees.

We are greeted by Muriel, our lovely B&B host, at her home on a quiet, tree-lined street in Capbreton.  What a civilized little town.  She directs us to a nearby favourite haunt of hers, an all-you-can eat BBQ / buffet restaurant – which is outstanding, and not at all like it’s equivalent in the UK.  We’re in bed by 9pm, relishing the relative space, and warmth, offered by being in a house.

Day 7, April 20th.  3 miles, Capbreton.  14C – 24C, sunny, windy

Well-rested this morning.  Lovely breakfast courtesy of Muriel, who joins us, and practices her English on us, whilst we do the same in reverse.

This morning is all about surfing.  We hire three boards and wetsuits from a shop on the seafront, leaving Ralph to (wisely) enjoy the sunshine on the beach, and head into the sea.  Looks idyllic, is bloody cold.

An hour and a quarter later and having battled with reasonably decent waves, the three of us are exhausted and can’t feel our fingers or toes.  We return the boards, dry off, change, and head for the sanctuary of the beachfront restaurant next door.  Burgers for the children, mussels for Nina and I – everyone else is ordering them, so they must be good. 

Actually they’re tiny.  Nina and I remember that they weren’t available in Cancale because they were out of season.  We enquire of the waiter.  “Yes, they are small since they are out of season.  It is spawning time, so they put all their energy into that, and they shrink”. So why do they still serve them?  “Because people still want them.  We import these ones from Ireland”. At least he’s honest.  And it’s entirely our own fault – we were told this literally four days ago.

Day 8, April 21st. 108 miles, Capbreton - Lourdes.  12C – 19C, sunny

We leave the lovely Muriel amidst hugs and wishes of bon voyage.  She’s recommended we stop at Bayonne for lunch, and also told us that we shouldn’t dwell in Lourdes too long – aside from the Basilica, in her view, it’s a ‘horrible town’.

She’s right on both counts.  Bayonne – an ancient Basque city – is a photographer’s dream.  Street after street of tall, ancient houses, adorned with multi-coloured shutters, undulating between the magnificent twin-spired cathedral and the two rivers that flow through the city.

We have lunch in a Basque café, everything on the menu is completely unpronounceable.  I order Etxalteko Askaria which is basically baked eggs with bacon, spiced potatoes, and sweet peppers. Have to resort to pointing.  The Basque language – still very much evident and in use here – is Europe’s oldest still-spoken language, with no links to any other European language.  We can tell.

We amble through the streets for a few hours, marvelling at the architecture, then load up and drive on to Lourdes, our final stop in France.  As we drive, the Pyrenees rise up ahead of us, the line of snow-capped peaks forming a seemingly impenetrable barrier to the Spanish border and beyond.  Excitement levels – especially from Laurie – are rising.

Tonight we camp literally at the foot of the mountains, just outside Lourdes. The first forested foothills are just behind us; we cook our (three course…) supper admiring the view and listening to the goat bells.  We’re in bed early, only to discover that our idyllic spot is actually next to rather busy road that turns into a race-track for the local youths at night – not quite the bucolic idyll we had in mind.

Day 9, April 22nd . 169 miles, Lourdes - Pamplona.  6C – 19C, sunny, biting wind

Poor night’s sleep all round, thanks to last night’s Pyrenean boy racers.  Bleary eyed, we munch through yoghurt and granola for breakfast, pack up swiftly, and head towards Lourdes’ ‘Sanctuary’ complex.

Laurie is very excited about the impending Pyrenean crossing, less so about visiting “Another Bloody Church” (“ABC”) beforehand.  But as we park up and start walking towards the main basilica, he realises – grudgingly – that this is an ‘A-list’ church, plus you can climb up bits of it, and therefore worth visiting.

It is actually.  The basilica is a delicate, slender edifice, nestled against the side of a Pyrenean foothill, it’s sharp, blue-grey stone spires contrasting crisply against the piercing blue sky.  It’s not that old – founded in 1858 when a peasant girl called Bernadette seemingly had 18 apparitions of the Virgin Mary in a cave – in front of which said basilica is now built. 

Six million Roman Catholic pilgrims / tourists visit here every year; we wander round respectfully, whilst the devout mutter their prayers and count their rosaries.  Ralph is particularly impressed with the architecture, and the symmetry of the smooth, sculpted, sandstone arches which hold up the entire edifice within the crypt-like ‘Basilique du Rosaire’ underneath the main basilica.

Today’s church-bashing complete, we walk up to the medieval castle to admire the view of the Sanctuary – and of the remains of the town.  Again, Muriel was right – very unappealing.  Row upon row of grubby, mid-rise hotels, profiting off the pious and devout, for whom the quality of accommodation is the least important consideration for their visit.

On to the Pyrenees!  We refuel before we start climbing, as chance would have it, at 11.59am in the last filling station before the mountains.  As we leave, the cashier closes up the shop and forecourt and starts her lunch-break: fermé  until 2.30pm!  We have to admire the French, for many things, not least their steadfast commitment to a proper lunch.

We cross via the Col du Pourtalet – one of the few passes open at this time of year.  Pretty, bucolic villages selling home-made cheese give way to steep, forest-clad slopes, punctuated by elegant 1920’s hydro-electric power stations, still working.  We stop for a quick picnic lunch before the snowline, then emerge on the high pastures – greening up rapidly, with alpine flowers starting to emerge.  But there is still much snow on the rocky, sheer peaks that surround us.  At 1,790m we hit the top of the pass, and everything turns into Spanish. 

As we descend, the impact of the south-facing slopes immediately hits us. It’s warmer, greener, woodier and gentler.  We descend almost too quickly; whilst the Pyrenees may be long, they are narrow.  Soon we’re down on the northern Spanish high plateau, and wondering where we might stay.

We stop at Berdun, a tiny village that occupies an almost perfectly circular hill, jutting out of the plain.  Three hairpin bends up and we can park, and explore.  It’s 4pm.  There are only two streets, with ancient, little stone houses huddled together on each one.  The place is utterly deserted.  Siesta. On our way out we find a solitary young mum with her children walking past the bar (closed) which appears to have rooms – but apparently the bar is cerrado today.

We drive on to Pamplona.  Nina books us an apartment to stay in for the night – the weather is deteriorating so we decide against camping.  We reach the city at 5.30pm, it’s not an inspiring sight.  It’s like the city authorities, 50 years ago, convened and discussed: “How can we make our city as ugly as possible?”  They certainly succeeded.  It is ringed by street upon street of monolithic, identikit 12-storey apartment blocks, grey in the sunshine and even greyer in the rain and wind that greets us as we arrive.

Our host is unable to give us the key until 6.30, and the booking confirmation gives us entirely the wrong address.  She speaks no English, but some French; my Spanish hasn’t really woken up yet.  We have, over the telephone, a horribly garbled conversation in what can only be described as Frogspañole – the sort of thing that makes language teachers weep into their textbooks.  But eventually we meet, retrieve keys, venture to the old town, eat, return, and sleep.