Well. . . I suppose that is only kinda true. French people are super nice I´ve found out. . . nothing like I was expecting with my patriotic distaste for los Franceses. But, they do also have delicious food (not that I tried a whole lot, but what I ate was muy rico!) So the trip started out in the Santander bus station at 630 on Friday morning, bleh, but that got us into Irun (closest Spanish city to the border) by around 1030. We then proceeded to wander our way into France! We got directions from a nice Spanish man out washing his car (much better than the suggested running across the freeway). Hendaye was a cute lil French town . . . surprisingly you can actually tell the difference with only a river in between. From Hendaye we took the train to Biarritz (a lovely coastal city) for only 4 euro, win!
So Biarritz, when we arrived we were just gonna go to the tourist information center and find a hotel, good plan, right? Well the tourist info was in the "town center". (I´m still not sure where the town center was). Anyways, we eventually found the tourist center after walking a bit, resting to eat our bocadillos, and asking the nice ice cream man (anyone for some glaces?) So after that we had our map and were on the hunt for the hotel. We had just figured out what to do when an old lady with vibrant lipstick came up to us saying Bonjour!. We were like okay and then she walked to the end of the block and told us how to get to the hotel we were looking for (note to anyone reading, she only spoke French and lots of it). But after deciding that the hotel was good, we went to the lighthouse (amazing views!) and who doesn´t love 248 stairs in a spiral staircase? But ya, overall I really enjoyed Biarritz we got to watch the sunset out on this little island-y thing with a statue of Mary. And pizza for dinner with crepes con nutella. Yum!
Saturday was our adventure to Lourdes. It began with a 530 walk to the train station (not to forget the 2 drunk French boys who thought we could be from Sydney). In case you were wondering, French train station ticket kiosks only take credit cards with fancy chip things (we didn´t have that kind of card). We also didn´t have enough money in change (dang!). But the nice conductor man, who spoke English, was able to tell us that we could simply buy our tickets on the train (Thank goodness!) Lourdes is a gorgeous little city (even if it is the Disney World of Catholicism, ya 200 hotels). Another wonderful French person was the lady in the tourist office, so nice! We went to the Castle and to the top of Pic du Jour (mountain in Lourdes). The views were soooooo incredible. Pyrennees mountains, WOW! And I now have a desire to actually "mountain" bike. (crazy French boys). The Sanctuary was really nice (check French off my list of Masses in other languages). Got to see where Mary appeared and got some holy water, woot! We had a delicious meal of French bread and brie (super cheap and wonderful). On Sunday morning we did the Stations of the Cross, life-size and up/down a hill. And we saw the underground Basilica, very cool.
The trip ended on a slightly different note, mostly the only bus from Irun to Santander was at 915 at night, but such is the cost of going on a French adventure. On the up side, I had some delicious pastries in Irun!
Hello, March! With March comes busy weekends and even more exciting travels. . . Salamanca here I come!
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