Bayonne, France
Trip Start
Apr 11, 2006
1
19
26
Trip End
??? ??, 2007
Bayonne,
France
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
While we had a fantastic time here, our living quarters in Bayonne were not exactly ideal. We were able to rent a university apartment thanks to Meredith's student status, but had no idea how small the place would be - even despite being made aware of its area in square meters - until we opened the door to move in. It was just big enough to contain the single bed, dorm-sized refrigerator, desk, single electric burner, and bathroom with shower, toilet, and sink (the only sink - there was not one in the kitchen). For the first week, we made do trying to sleep together in the tiny bed, but that did not work so well. After not getting much sleep at all, we bought a single air mattress to put on the floor. This did not work so well either, and after a few more weeks, we traded up for the double air mattress. This took up the entire floor - no exaggeration. During the day, the mattress was tucked behind the bed against the wall to save space. We did not have phone or internet access in the apartment since connection fees were so steep.
01 Bayonne - Houses, City Wall, and Cathedral
Overall, the apartment was not so great, but it further proved what I can put up with for two months (Meredith had more of a hard time with the place than I).Our location was pretty decent, up on a hill about a mile or so from downtown, and across the street from the tiny university campus that teaches only a few specialized subjects. Around the corner is the stadium of the city's all-Basque professional rugby team and a couple adjoining practice fields for rugby and soccer. Down the street is a large, old cemetery, and not far away from that are several hospitals and clinics - this grouping made sense to me. The neighborhood also contains several businesses that have close ties to the cemetery's presence, such as funeral homes, funeral-related florists, and headstone manufacturers. Housing varies from large multi-story/multi-family developments to a few nice single-unit dwellings. Two or three bus lines criss-cross the area, leading to downtown or toward Biarritz and Anglet.
Other parts of the city are quite nice, with a thriving but personal downtown and lots of preserved buildings. The main architectural style is typical of the Basque Country's cities: three- to four-story multi-family downtown buildings with a kind of off-white stucco exterior and red, green, or blue trim and shutters. Other buildings are made of stone blocks, and many have some kind of retail on the ground floor. Restaurants are traditional French, Basque, and sometimes Italian, with a heavy emphasis on seafood, and shopping varies depending on the neighborhood or quarter.
02 City Hall/Theater
The cathedral, which I think dates to the 14th or 15th century, is a grand gothic work close to the center of town, and sometimes hosts local art exhibits. A large portion of the city's former ramparts exists preserved on the edge of downtown, containing a beautiful garden and some amazingly placed tennis courts (private, I think) in the basin of what was once the moat. This moat was also my preferred location to kick a soccer ball, more because it was one of the only places in town with grass that allowed public access than anything else, but it was definitely a cool place to be.Sidewalks are very well connected throughout town, and Bayonne's many pedestrians make sure that they do not go unused. Bicycle lanes are not ubiquitous, but neither are they non-existent - their inclusion into the design of many roundabouts clears up any potential confusion or conflict. Paths with separated areas for cycling and walking/jogging are popular, and many more seem to be in planning or development stages. While this is a great resource for the community to have, certain spots are not very well thought out - safety, efficiency, and ease of travel are not always obvious in their inclusion in the design process.
The bus system, cooperated by Bayonne and neighboring cities Anglet and Biarritz (BAB), seems to work well, though it is slightly pricey. We did not ride the bus at all - when I was alone, I was on my bicycle, and when we were together, the round-trip, two-person fares would have cost about $10; discount passes are still expensive.
03 Our Kitchen
Free parking exists at most businesses outside of downtown, and paid spaces in the city-center are generally not difficult to find. The problem with this is that parking takes up more space downtown than it should, leaving less room for revenue-generating commercial uses or civic spaces such as parks or plazas. Although driving around downtown is not a cinch (this is Europe), the rest of the area is somewhat accessible via automobile.While we were living in Bayonne, my time was largely spent at the beach and at the chamber of commerce, which was the location of the language center where I attended three weeks of French classes. It was excellent to meet so many people from different parts of Europe (though mostly Spain) and communicate in a language foreign to us all. I also made friends with a Frenchman who was studying English in preparation of taking a job at an American bank in Luxembourg; fortunately for him, his English was better than my French. I learned a good bit during these few weeks, and Meredith and I were allowed to use the school's computers for multimedia French CDs and general internet activities. (Strangely, a few days before we left, the director of the school told us with a polite smile that the following day would be the last we could use the computers - no reason given at all.) The classes were mostly beneficial, although a couple of the students did not seem so interested in learning very much and held back the rest of us.
The beach, on the other hand, was fantastic.
04 The Apartment
From class to the Anglet coast was about 22 minutes on my bicycle, and 25 minutes from the beach to our apartment. There were weeks when I went every single day, and still didn't get tired of it. In fact, on our first night in Bayonne, we headed out to Anglet at around 8:00 just because it was so close. The sunset was breathtaking, with many professional-looking photographers lined up to capture it on film, or in 0s and 1s. Having not been to the ocean in quite some time, I could not resist the urge to hop in despite not having my swim trunks - my shorts took a long time to dry, but it was well worth it. Speaking of the beach, I finally got to try surfing for the first time one hot and sunny day in August. I drove the little Peugeot out to Anglet, found a rental shop in a sort of strip mall next to the beach, psyched myself up for something I'd been wanting to do since I was about five years old (but never had, despite living in Cape Town, Rio de Janeiro, and southern California), and learned in about ten minutes that the waves here were much too large and powerful for me to do this alone. And though the gentleman at the shop had sort of scoffed at the idea of me - a first-timer! - not taking a lesson, I knew of a better spot where the waves would be much gentler and the beach less crowded (fewer people to see me be a fool). The challenge now was to find a way to fit this large white plank into our small white sardine can of a car.
After fifteen minutes of tweaking seat configurations and the hatchback, I realized that the only way to do this would be to leave about of a foot of the board sticking out of the window for all to see - hopefully, not the police.
05 APM
I made it to the other beach in no time, unloaded my board, and hit the water. Here, the waves were much smaller and there was hardly any danger of getting into trouble, though it took some time to figure out which waves were worth trying to catch. Two hours later, I had actually gotten up three or four times, managing to stay up exactly once, and realized that something was wrong with my chest. Turns out that rubbing your skin against a rubber pad (designed and placed to keep your back foot from slipping, I guess) for hours at a time is really irritating. Luckily, I had packed a long-sleeved synthetic shirt that I use for hiking. I wondered why I had not put this on long ago, as the water was not what most people would call warm and nearly everyone there had on a wetsuit or at least a shirt like this (but made specifically for surfing). Newly reinvigorated with my new attire and some sustenance (I packed bread, but forgot water), I raced back toward the ocean, and really started to get the hang of this. Until the tide came in and basically rendered null all of my waves a couple hours later, I was hitting almost every wave I tried for, and was staying up for a few seconds - or more - almost as often as not. Satisfied with my progress, and really thirsty, I decided to call it a day and return my board, assuming I could remember how to put it back in the car. This unfortunately turned out to be the first and last time of the summer that I went surfing, but the important thing is that I no longer have to wonder if I can, and that it was so enjoyable.
Another adventure was when Meredith and I drove north to check out the less populated beaches of the Landes.
06 The Inspiration for My Next House (at left)
Only a 30-40 minute drive from Bayonne, this area is pretty but also somewhat pockmarked by all of the poorly-done vacation developments and tourist attractions. The two standouts from this day were the size and power of the waves, which were bolstered by the effects of an Atlantic hurricane far off to the west, and the couple next to us, who really seemed to think they were alone on the beach. For weeks, I had this strange urge to ride my bike to Spain and back, and finally followed through one Saturday. There's a small city just across the border called Irun (not Iruña, the Basque name of Pamplona), which is accessible by the very busy and extremely hilly French N10 highway. At most points, this is a two-lane (one in each direction) death trap, though it does have some meager bicycle lanes for a large portion of the trip, and with every kilometer of the first 30 or 40 minutes, I wondered whether I'd regret my decision. After about an hour and a half of pedaling, I made it to Irun, and followed the local bike paths to a small square where I ate my bread and gouda, drank lots of water, and constantly remarked to myself how sore my backside was and would continue to be for the return trip.
Unfortunately, I really didn't have my legs on the way back, and the general trend of the road was more uphill than down this time. Struggling basically the entire way, I made it to Biarritz (not far from Bayonne), and decided to stop at a café, grab a beer and a waffle, and then hit the beach.
07 Typical Street in Bayonne
My beer was refreshing, even for an Amstel, and my waffle covered with chocolate sauce was a good pick-me-up. I changed out of my spandex in the café's men's room, locked up the bike, and relied more on gravity than my leg muscles to get me down the many steps to the beach, a tiny, packed-out, beautiful cove with barely room for my little pack towel and pannier. The small waves were very soothing, and I did my best to just float around and relax for a half-hour to ease my mind about the dreaded remounting of the bicycle. I got just a little lost twice on the way home, but made it with enough energy to carry those steel tubes and such up two tall flights of stairs to our apartment, and collapsed on the bed. Next time, I'll plan my trip A) around Saturday traffic, and B) around such a bad route.Not many days later, a friend from Athens came to visit for a week. Though the living quarters were somewhat cramped, all of us had a great time. Besides the typical Bayonne/beach related things, we showed took a couple of trips to show our guest around a little bit. The first was a day trip to San Sebastian, in the Spanish side of Basque Country. Supposed to be a great and beautiful city, San Sebastian is interesting. We wandered around town with no agenda during the morning, heading into a large park with an old fort at the top of a hill overlooking the bay, and then were the first ones to be seated at the vegetarian restaurant we had scouted-out (the Spanish eat lunch later than I can really convey).
08 Another Typical Street
The food was fantastic, as was the hard cider. After walking through different parts of town, we all barely fell into a little café for some coffee and sweets to sustain us during the drive back to Bayonne. The other trip we took while our friend was in town was a one-nighter back to Aussurucq, our adopted French hometown. Luckily, our friends Pierre and Elizabeth were out of town and let us crash at their beautiful old house while they were gone. Our friend's favorite pastime seemed to be wandering around the little village seeing what fruits she could pick from various people's trees without being caught. Dinner was Indian, so I slid by on a couple of bites, not wanting to get sick. Besides, we had bought dessert earlier in the day from a bakery in Mauleon - a little chocolate cake, some gateau Basque (Basque cake - buttery, and usually seems to have some pudding in it), and a fruity tart of some kind. The next day, we returned to Bayonne and probably headed to the beach for hours. It should be noted that this friend's favorite beach activity was scoping out "boobies!" - big or small, young or old - and trying to take nonchalant pictures. We hope that she got a couple of decent shots on her camera, and that she had as much fun on her first trip to Europe as we did hosting her.
I think that's about it except for some random inclusions for which a spot can only be found at the end of such an organized, well thought out piece of writing as this. First, our apartment was located next to the Champion grocery store. This is significant primarily because of the overwhelming stench of garbage and seafood (or seafood as garbage) that we lived with on and off all summer long, but also, more interestingly, because of the APM on the property (nickname courtesy of Chrissa) - automatic pizza machine. Though we never used this because at €8-9, I'm not sure we would have been impressed, it was almost as bizarre as the "Live Bait" vending machines you see at various places (only in the South?) - go to Sandy Creek Park if you're in Athens - and for that reason, worth noting. Another interesting tidbit is that fact that the dumpster at our apartment complex was not unloaded by the typical lift-and-dump system you see in the US, but with a crane. Like I said, I think that's all. I could write more, but these are the more interesting parts, and I can always go back through pictures to jog my memory more if I need to. Really great city, to visit or to live. It was absolutely a highlight of my trip to be able to live within easy access of such a great beach.
