Saturday, 3 February 2024
Off to a misty start this morning but a couple cups of coffee (and a quick viennoiserie) had me on the road towards this afternoon's destination: St Jean Pied de Port. Located to the south east of Dax, this town in Basque country is further in from the coast than I'm used to; funnily, my GPS routed me differently than I had expected, similar to the routes I'd taken to visit the Armagnac region or to Carcassonne.
As great as it is to be able to walk around the block to Le Secret du Pain, I think this Maison Phillipe Pelé is much, much better.
I arrived around 12:30 to St Jean Pied de Port, which meant most places (and people) were on their lunch break and the street's weren't too busy. Many walls of the old city are preserved, so entering via the Spanish gate offered an info plaque explaining the town's name (St Jean Pied de Port translates literally as Saint John Foot of the Pass): Named for John the Baptist, the town became a hub for people looking to cross the Pyrénées via nearby the 4 navigable passes i.e. the door to Spain. ORRR rather the door to France, since the city was founded as San Juan del Pie de Portus by the Navarran King in Pamplona, Sancho VII the Strong. Maybe we split the difference and say the city is at the foot of some Pyrénéan passes...
The covered market, where I suppose in the morning one could buy groceries
I was surprised these old walls and their port holes were left standing, it's literally just another street on the other side now.
The Spanish gate
An outdoor court (maybe two courts) for pelote
A small, but quick river bisects the part of the city from the main section, La Nive de Béhérobie, which is a smaller tributary to La Nive that I ended up crossing in Bayonne. Because of this, there were a couple of nice bridges as well as some history about how the river water was vital to the city's life and economy. Once across the river, I worked my way up an interesting ramparts walk to the top of the hill, where an imposing citadel was built to watch over the surrounding valleys.
A river runs through it, "it" being St Jean Pied de Port
A set of stairs brought me down to the river just after the info panel saying women would wash clothes in this river. I was confused because this spot basically dropped off to 3 feet deep; a quick search found another set of stairs leading to a much shallower stretch of river...
This path up looks just a little overgrown but I like the aesthetic this plant is bringing.
I opted to take the stone steps of the ramparts instead of the overgrown hill path
Unclear what this little cistern is for or whether I'm looking into someone's back yard
Plenty of ferns and moss to be found here, I'd say it's a staple of the regions near the Atlantic
It's been warm here, I spotted a few trees already flowering and I remember seeing blooming daffodils earlier in the week.
I found it neat that they'd preserved the citadel well and dedicated it as a school. Still, the walk around the citadel was enjoyable (I ended up taking my jacket off it was so warm) and the view from the main platform was impeccable.
Those are some pretty tall walls for a place atop a hill
And it's got multiple layers of defense with moats...
Le college for the kids
Pic de Behorleguy
Hmm, moat on one side of the bridge and playground on the other...
Ok, I can see why they put the citadel up here to watch the area
In classic Pyrénées fashion, there's a little bit of moisture in the air adding just a mild effect over the mountains.
I just thought that Ruffle looked so interesting with its ridges
From the citadel, I worked my way down the hill through town, taking a short turn from the main street to follow the walls. Surprisingly, the wall walk puts you right over people's/businesses' yards but I suppose that's a known known for whoever is looking at the real estate. After completing my walk down the hill, I popped my head into the Notre Dame that was built into one of the gates and then took a late lunch (I made it just in the nick of time before the kitchen closed for the afternoon).
The descent along the other set of ramparts was pleasant, striking a balance of old stone walls and overgrown ruins
The quiet street descending the hill
The note reads: "Please don't leave letters below the door, there's always been letter slot on this door"
Walking the city walls
The river makes a dramatic exit from town by dropping a couple meters.
The gate facing south; the church is seemingly built right into the gate house too.
A few stained glass windows adding polka dots to the columns
Some sort of shredded duck in pastry for the entrée, definitely could have been it's own meal.
Neck of lamb with legumes and dolphin style potatoes (Dauphinois) which is basically crispy fried mash potatos.
After lunch, I took one last tour up the main street of the city, this time more people were about and businesses open. A detail I'd noticed on the info plaques was about how pilgrims of Saint James (Saint Jacques or San Tiago) had settled on St Jean Pied de Port as an ideal resting spot during the way both before and after crossing the mountains; this also began to click with other things I'd seen or heard during my stay in Europe:
- Several of my hikes along the coast were part of El Camino del Norte
- Pamplona featured a section of its tourist guide about The Way and where refuge could be sought
- Les noix de St. Jacques (the scallops) I've eaten, someone mentioned that the scallop shell is the symbol of the pilgrimage
- I'd seen many blue signs with a yellow set of radial lines, which I assumed meant a scenic outlook...
Per wikipedia
Think the cat is shelling out 12€ to take refuge?
I actually spotted somebody with a scallop shell attached to a stave relaxing on a bench here
A cute little street with nice facades
A more modern facade
Oh man, it's not a scenic lookout symbol: it's a sideways scallop shell!!!!
If I remember correctly from the Basque museum, an inscription over the doorway is part of Basque architecture
People milling about the gate
If you plan to steal from this bijouterie, I recommend only nicking the steel and silver stuff; the guard dog looks pretty good at retrieving the gold stuff
Came across this young cat. I wasn't exactly sure what it's deal was: it clearly had a lot of energy and was running around and chasing things on the ground.
I couldn't decide if it was sick or in heat, either way I was content to watch from a distance.
Maybe it lives there? When a woman came running over to close the window, I realized that it probably wasn't the case 😅
After wrapping up my self-guided tour of St Jean Pied de Port, I plugged one more destination into the GPS to view before calling it a day: this time it was the small town of Banka to the south. Earlier online research had mentioned La Truite de Banka (the trout of Banka) as a possible item of interest in the area and I figured I'd give it a look. I'd seen fish farms before thanks to my uncle and I figured it'd be a shame not to check it out once I knew of its existence.
A quick 30 minute driving winding through the passes brought me to this quiet little stretch of stream where la ferme aquacole (fish farm) was set up on a canal once used for a flour mill. A fun little tidbit was that I drove right pas the town of Irouleguy (the namesake of the Irouleguy wine appellation) enroute to Banka and there were plenty of farms with signs about Brebis cheese that I had to ignore enroute to the next stop: I had bigger fish to fry.
A mill in Banka converted from making flour to making Watts
The exit of the turbines
An imposing ridge over the fish farm, I like that you can see the slant of the layers. I drew some parallels between this landscape and my drive through Cathare country in the East Pyrénées; I wonder where along the range you start to see the shift from Atlantic to Mediterannean plants.
And here's the farm and river
Glare makes it hard to see but there are some big trout in this pool.
I could have sworn I drove past another trout farm to get here, maybe this one is special in that it allows visitors?
The visit didn't take particularly long and I was basically the only visitor on site for my self-guided tour, but I found it all pretty interesting. Their pond set up and how they controlled the flow of water was pretty cool; I was little surprised to learn that they didn't fertilize their own fish eggs on-site but rather purchased them from another supplier. Still, seems there's plenty of work involved in sorting/culling fish and maintaining good growth conditions. The museum exhibit made it sound like the place had found a great balance of fresh, clean water with a consistent temp and opting for lower fish density in ponds than required by regulation. I began to wonder about batches of fish spending years in these ponds but I suppose fish living in the river are probably used to operating in relatively small patches of water.
I found the rotating leaf filter at the system inlet to be an interesting device; there was a pump flushing water along the top to ensure leaves weren't sticking on the inside of the drum.
Not quite Olympic, but definitely pools
From the info plaques, I learned that the trout have a general growth pattern of ~100g in 1 year, 200 g in 2 years, and 5kg in 5 years. Most at this place were harvested at 2 years, which frees up space for the older ones to grow larger. It's an interesting optimization problem that you get waaaay more mass per fish by waiting longer but I suppose a farm has to have the space, food, and cash for all that. It did remind me of an article my uncle had shown me about how humans have selected for smaller salmon, basically letting the small ones who "choose" to breed after 2-3 years at sea go while harvesting the bigger ones that spend 5-6 years at sea.
The boutique offered trout flesh in various forms but they're also pushing cured trout skin as a fashion product. I'd have considered a trout skin belt if they didn't literally cost 95€...
I said goodbye to the fish farm and made my way back to the city proper of Banka. Apparently the other big attraction there is a museum about the copper mining that took place over the centuries. Unfortunately, the museum wasn't open for me but I had a quick walk around town anyway before heading home.
Spotted this fuzzy looking plant popping up from crinkly tree leaves
Interesting that this pelote court is also a main thoroughfare for the town, I suppose that indicates how often they expect cars to show up.
I hadn't noticed the canal running above the river before, this water was used in the copper smelting process
No placards here but I'm guessing this little nook below the road was for washing clothes
Hmm, sun's getting low in the mountains, maybe it's time to skedaddle
A remnant of the copper smelter?
"What're ewe looking at?"
This sheep was both super pleased with itself for having mounted the wall but also pouty that there wasn't much to much on up there.
À la prochaine, les Pyrénées!
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