Touring Pamplona and Bayonne, Spanish and French Basque Region Tourist Towns with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring Pamplona and Bayonne, Spanish and French Basque Region Tourist Towns with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My husband Laurent and I continued driving through the Pyrénées Mountains to the City of Pamplona in Spain made famous by Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises.

Pamplona is the seat of the Navarra Government and has many government buildings as well.  We had trouble finding a place to park.

Once we found a parking spot, the siesta was well underway.  Everything was closed except for the bar-restaurants in town. 

We found one with air-conditioning and ate there.  I ordered in the Spanish I had learned all by myself using books, reading a bilingual French-Spanish newspaper, and watching the European news and feature television program called Continentales on television.

I ordered beer for us along with ham and cheese sandwiches.  The bar was air-conditioned.  I really did not want to go out and do any touring, but Laurent finally insisted we get moving.

The streets in Pamplona have collapsible metal barriers built into them that were beneath the pavement.  When the Running of the Bulls happens during the Feast of Saint Fermin in July, these metal barriers are hauled up to protect the spectators.

I pretended to be a bull and chased Laurent through the streets.  I hope we did not wake anyone up from their siesta from laughing.

We stayed in Bayonne the next day, because it was raining.  We covered Florence up and walked to a Basque bookstore in the Petit Bayonne.  The salesman in the bookstore was reading a Basque newspaper when we came in.

While we were looking around, he greeted another customer in Basque and had a long conversation.  Once the conversation was over, I asked the salesman for some recommendations on Basque music.

I bought two cassettes of Basque church music, a Basque cookbook, and a copiously illustrated book about the Basque Country in English.

We ate a Basque restaurant called the Bar du Marché.  Our simple lunch was delicious – grilled fish with potatoes and salad followed by chocolate cake.

Laurent and Florence conked out at the hotel.  I took a long walk outside and was happy with my vacation.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting Bayonne: Touring the Capital of France's Basque Country with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Bayonne:  Touring the Capital of France’s Basque Country with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The capital of the French Basque Country is Bayonne, which is located on the Atlantic Ocean.  I called Bayonne the “City of Persian Shutters.”  All the row houses seem to have slatted shutters that you can see out of a house, but not into it.

Bayonne’s streets are narrow and finding a parking spot in the summer is impossible.  The many food and wine shops there made me think that people ate well in Bayonne.

I discovered that Bayonne was easy to navigate once you oriented yourself in relation to the cathedral.  The cathedral is beautiful from a distance, but I wanted to go shopping and not visit a church for once.

I was on the hunt for bookstores as I pushed Florence around town.  The first bookstore I found was all historical books, but I wanted cookbooks and art books, which were in short supply.

That night I ate Poulet Basquaise (Basque Chicken) for dinner.  Poulet Basquaise is a stovetop preparation of braised chicken with red bell peppers, green bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, and white wine. 

It is easy to prepare, and peppers are full of Vitamin C, which is supposed to be an antioxidant.  (Source: Anthony Bourdain’s recipe in Food and Wine magazine online.)

I drank a white wine with my dish called Irouléguy from the French Basque Country.  For dessert, I ate a Basque Cake with vanilla pastry cream in it.  Basque cake is sinfully good.   I reserved indulging in it for vacations.

I ate omelets, potatoes, salad with blue cheese dressing, and fruit salad at home, so I liked indulging in Basque cake on vacation.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

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