The Basque Country from both sides

From the coast to the mountain villages

The loop starts at Saint-Jean-de-Luz and follows the corniche to Hendaye. There, the Château d’Abbadia stands above the sea. Then you cross the Bidasoa: on the other side, Hondarribia has kept its ramparts, its Charles V castle and its brightly coloured balconies. The road goes on to San Sebastián, its La Concha beach and Monte Urgull, at the end of the bay.

Then the road leaves the sea for the green hills of Navarre. The mountain villages are some twenty kilometres from the beaches. The roads become narrow and winding. They run through Lesaka and Zugarramurdi, then cross back into France at Ainhoa and Sare, at the foot of La Rhune.

You pass from one country to the other almost without noticing. The real contrast is between the coast and the interior. The loop leaves out Biarritz and Bayonne, less than half an hour north of Saint-Jean-de-Luz.

From one side of the border to the other, the villages look alike. Each has its fronton, often built against the church, and that is where the village gets together on Sundays. Pelota is played there bare-handed, with a pala or with a chistera, a wicker glove that sends the ball off at more than two hundred kilometres an hour. The houses have white walls, half-timbering and shutters in oxblood red or green. On the lintel, you can read the family name and the year the house was built. The house, the etxe, long counted for more than the people who lived in it: they went by its name.

On signs and menus, you also read Euskara, the Basque language. It has no known relative among the languages of Europe. It is spoken in seven provinces, three in France and four in Spain, gathered under one name, Euskal Herria. It is the language, more than the border, that defines the country. In the inland villages, it remains the language of everyday life.

The border, from the Bidasoa to La Rhune

On 7 November 1659, France and Spain signed the Treaty of the Pyrenees on Pheasant Island, in the middle of the Bidasoa. The two countries administer it in turn, six months each. The treaty fixed the border in broad outline and provided for a marriage. In June 1660, Louis XIV married the Infanta Maria Theresa in the church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste at Saint-Jean-de-Luz. According to tradition, the door through which the newly-weds left was then walled up. You can still see it on the side of the church.

The border also runs over the summit of La Rhune, at 905 metres. A little rack railway, in service since 1924, climbs it in thirty-five minutes from the Col de Saint-Ignace. It runs through moorland where pottoks graze, the small semi-wild horses of the Basque Country. At the top, the view reaches from the coast of the Landes to the peaks of the Pyrenees. On the Spanish side, ventas, border inns and shops, serve food a stone’s throw from France.

What not to miss

1. 1La RhuneThe border summit, reached on foot or by rack railway.
2. 2The inland villagesAinhoa and Sare: red half-timbered houses and pelota courts.
3. 3The Basque cornicheBetween Hendaye and Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the coast drops straight into the Atlantic.
4. 4HondarribiaA walled old town with brightly coloured balconies, just across the Bidasoa from Hendaye.
5. 5La ConchaSan Sebastián’s bay, one of the most famous city beaches in Europe.
6. 6ZugarramurdiThe sabbath cave and the witches’ museum, a few minutes from the border.

The Basque Country in pictures

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A Labourd house and the bell tower of Ainhoa.

Basque food

On the French side, Espelette pepper seasons many dishes, from veal axoa to Bayonne ham. Gâteau basque, filled with black cherry or with cream, is sold in every village.

On the Spanish side, San Sebastián is the city of pintxos: small bites lined up on bar counters. You have them with a glass of txakoli, the lightly sparkling white wine of the coast.