Visiting San Sebastian: Spain's Conch-Shelled Beach Town by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting San Sebastian: Spain’s Conch-Shelled Beach Town by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

On another vacation day in the French Basque country, my husband Laurent and I headed out for the town of San Sebastian in the Spanish Basque country, which is famous for its conch shell-shaped beach on the Atlantic.

On the way to the Spanish border, we passed Hendaye, which is the water sports capital of Southwestern France.  There are tons of surfboards with sails, water scooters, and water skiers out on the water there.  Of course, everyone is tan and very, very thin.

The border was non-existant; we just drove into Spain with a glance at our license plates by border control.

Once inside the town of San Sebastian, Laurent and I parked at the garage shared by the Maria Christina Hotel and Victoria Eugénie Theatre. 

The ocean comes directly into town in channels with ornately carved bridges over them.  San Sebastian is like Venice, but with less polluted water and air to breathe.

We visited the town’s churches and admired the conch-shelled beach and the Spanish well-to-do in their lace-accented clothing.  (Versace was big in the 1990s.)

San Sebastian is a favorite vacation destination for Spanish royalty, aristocrats, and bureaucrats, who would-be aristocrats from Madrid.  The aristocratic babies were decked out in lovely, lace outfits that were perfectly ironed.

Florence had drawers full of these kinds of clothes at home in Paris, but I was becoming fed up with ironing and dressed Florence in shorts and T-shirts or blue jean overalls with a T-shirt to play in.

Florence looked cute in her American jeans and waved and smiled at everyone just like a movie star. 

We went back to France to eat.  We had steaks, steamed potatoes with butter and parsley, and green beans at the Buffalo Grill that also played loud Rolling Stones music.  I always got extra Sauce Béarnaise there and a strawberry sundae for dessert.

After lunch, we visited the monastery’s museum when that opened after the siesta.

Then, we drove through the mountains to St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port, the spot where all the Camino de Santiago de Compostela routes converged before going into Spain.

At the top of the mountain, we arrived at Roncevalles and ate lunch at a monastery.  Roncevalles is famous as being the spot where the French knight Roland was killed.  His story is recorded in the French national epic entitled The Song of Roland.

The Basque houses in the mountains had orange, asymmetrical roofs to aid in letting rainwater fall far away from the house quickly, shutters on windows on these white-washed homes could be orange, brown, blue, or green.  Flowers were in bloom everywhere.

I still love driving through the countryside analyzing homes to see what materials they are built with and what cultural group they belong to. 

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

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Visiting Biarritz and St.-Jean-de-Luz: Touring the French Basque Country's Ritzy Oceanfront Towns by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Biarritz and St.-Jean-de-Luz:  Touring the  French Basque Country’s Ritzy Oceanfront Towns by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

After a good night’s sleep in the Basque city of Bayonne, my husband Laurent and I drove down the Basque Coast.

Our first stop was at the resort town of Biarritz.  There is a dramatic oceanfront there with big waves smashing rocks.  The beach exists for surfers.

There is only a small section of beach reserved for swimmers at Biarritz.

My favorite story about Biarritz concerns Eugénie de Montijo and Emperor Napoleon III.  When Napoleon III was courting Eugénie, he asked her what was the shortest way to her apartment.

“Through the church,” she answered to her future husband.

The setting of Biarritz awes you with its hotels and apartments built up on rocks.  The fortress affect is softened by mauve hortensia flowers cascading down the fronts of buildings.

Biarritz reminded me of Deauville with its lush landscaping, designer clothing stores, and Swiss watch and pen stores.

The next town we visited further down the Atlantic Coast was the port town named Saint Jean-de-Luz.  Louis XIV married the Spanish princess Maria Theresa, the Infanta, of Spain here in a pink and white building on the port.

We bought boxes of chocolate as souvenirs and read that the Spanish Infanta brought her love for chocolate to France.

We ate mussels steamed with white wine and chopped shallots with crème fraîche added at the end in Saint Jean-de-Luz for dinner before going back to Bayonne with a beautiful sunset to end the day.

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

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Touring the Abbaye de Chaalis (Parisian Countryside): Visiting the Archives for Art Historian Emile Male and Jean-Jacques Rousseau by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring the Abbaye de Chaalis (Parisian Countryside):  Visiting the Archives for Art Historian Emile Mâle and Jean-Jacques Rousseau with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

We spent Basille Day visiting the Abbaye de Chaalis in the countryside east of Paris.  This Abbaye was founded in 1136 by King Louis le Gros (Louis the Fat).

The Abbaye de Chaalis is run by the Institut de France.  They give excellent, private tours, but they are only available in French.

I liked the room with art historian Emile Mâle’s books and journals in it.  Mâle specialized in the art of the Middle Ages.  I read all of Mâle’s books in college in English and then in French when I lived in France.  I switched my personal preferences from modern art to French medieval art, because of his writings.

Mâle was the curator of the collection at Chaalis at one time.  His daughter gave the museum his sword from the Académie Française to preserve and protect when he died.

We also visited the Jean-Jacques Rousseau room.  The guide told us that whenever Russian visitors came to visit France, they always wanted to see Rousseau’s artifacts at Chaalis.  The Russians told guides that Rousseau’s book The Social Contract was a foundation for the development of Communism.

When Laurent and I left the Abbaye de Chaalis, we passed by Ermenoville where Rousseau was buried on a wooded island before his tomb was moved to the Panthéon in the Latin Quarter in Paris.

We also passed the kiddy amusement park called Parc Astérix after the French comic book series.

That was a fun outing capped off by a dinner with a Margherita pizza (provolone cheese and basil on top of tomato sauce), some rosé, and a lemon sorbet.

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

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Touring Sainte-Madeleine Basilica in Vezalay: Visiting Burgundy's Church Celebrating Foreign-Language Study with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring Sainte-Madeleine Basilica in Vézalay:  Visiting Burgundy’s Church Celebrating Foreign-Language Study with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

On a cool spring day, my husband Laurent and I went on a weekend road trip to Burgundy to visit the Sainte Madeleine Basilica in Vézalay.

When we arrived, we parked at the bottom of the hill leading up to the Basilica and began our climb.  The street leading up to the Basilica was lined with souvenir shops, art galleries, and wine cellars selling Vézalay wine.

I bought a French-language book on heraldry, family crests that were used on armor.  Obviously, French heraldry differs from English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and German heraldry, because their armies faced each other on battlefields.

The Michelin green touring guide for Burgundy explained the significance of the Basilica Sainte Madeleine.  A church and abbey have always stood on the Basilica’s site since the 9^th century when it was founded by Girart de Rousillón.

The Basilica is famous for several reasons:

-Saint Bernard called for the Second Crusade from the Basilica’s pulpit on March 31, 1146

-The relics of Mary Magdalen were housed in the Basilica, which made it a pilgrimage site.  However, other relics of Mary Magdalen were found at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume in southeastern France close to Aix-en-Provence.

-Vézalay is also the starting point for one of France’s four pilgrimage routes that lead to Saint Jean Pied-de-Port in the Pyrénées and eventually Saint Jacques de Compostela.

-Finally, during the Third Crusade, Richard the Lionheart, and Philip Augustus met at Vézalay on their way to the Holy Land.

The Basilica at Vézalay still attracts hordes of visitors thanks to its restoration by Viollet-le-Duc, who also restored Nôtre Dame in Paris.  The Basilica was fully restored in 1859.

Visitors have always come to the Basilica at Vézalay to admire its tympanum, the half-circle arch over the main church entranceway, which portrays Christ giving his apostles the Gift of Tongues to speak foreign languages.

The Gift of Tongues is celebrated during the Catholic Feast of Pentecost.  Ridged rays shoot out from Christ’s hands to show him giving his apostles the Gift of Speech, or ability to speak foreign languages, to spread his gospel.

The tops of the columns inside the Basilica all had elaborate foliage and fantastic beasts on them.  The lateral aisles around the main pews perfectly show that the Basilica was built to accommodate circulating crowds of pilgrims.

After visiting Vézalay, we went to Dijon and walked around town for an hour.  I just wanted to look at the rooftops with their diamond-shaped rooftops.

We did not have rooftops like that in Paris.  The diversity of just architectural styles in France never ceased to amaze me.  This diversity revealed different climactic patterns, building materials, and different cultural living patterns.  I still love driving around the French countryside for this reason.

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

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