August 23 -- morning in Bayonne

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Bayonne!

A gorgeous day! Pleasant temps, sunny skies, nice breeze...........

A spectacular view from our hotel window!

I can't remember when we realized this is a tidal river. This is the Adour.

I noticed, the first evening, that the green stuff (a technical term) on the piers supporting the bridge was noticeably higher than the level of the water. I wondered about that......

At some point we noticed that, not only was the level of the river much higher than it had been, that first evening, but the water was flowing the other way........................

Oh! Right! *Tidal* river, flowing from the land toward the ocean when the tide is low, but from the ocean up the river when the tide is high! The ocean is only about five miles west of "our" bridge (west is to the right as you look out our window).





Water definitely going from land (east, left) to sea in this pic.





The flow of water around the piers made interesting patterns (and pleasant sounds).





Looking back at our hotel from the bridge. Our window is the open one, pretty much in the middle.





Looking back across at the north side of the river. Our hotel circled in "orange roof-tile" orange, on the right. I should have chosen another color; that one doesn't show up as well as I wish it did.





Fish in the river. It looked to me like these were all the same kind, but different sizes. In the evenings we saw several guys fishing from the bridge, and from the road in front of our hotel, but I never saw anyone catch anything.

I thought of asking what sort of fish they were hoping for, but realized that even if I understood what they told me, I almost certainly wouldn't know anything about that sort of fish....





Our first stop on that Monday was an ATM. We looked up toward the cathedral, but continued along the road that parallels the river.

See the columnar things at the bottom of the pic? They block vehicular traffic. It seemed to be common in France for these things to be able to be moved, if you had the right sort of key. (I didn't see what -- an actual key? a card to swipe?) If you had the "password," you could make the columns go down so you could drive through....

That's how deliveries get made to all of these merchants.............





Love the roads............

I've noticed in the past that my feet looooove to walk on sand. Sometimes they hurt if I walk and/or stand on a hard surface, but they can walk on sand all day and still be happy. I think they like to walk on uneven surfaces. I believe they liked the paving stones, too.

(Suitcases, not so much. Those little wheels -- some of them seem to be made for display only, and will break or fall off at the least provocation. Even the better ones do not last as well as one would hope, particularly when tortured by pavers.........)





ATM. Just like at home. Tell it how much, collect your money....

Well -- just like at home, only the ones France are much more polite than ours, and will speak to you in your choice of languages. In the USA, I bet you are in trouble if you don't read English..................





The next stop was the post office, to mail home a batch of ephemera -- maps, etc. -- from previous stops on the trip, and to buy stamps to mail postcards to the USA. (Envoyer, envoyer, envoyer......)

Wouldn't you guess this might be a post office, even though this particular view does not show all the envelopes, etc., for sale right behind us? As you can see, there was lots of stuff to entice kids. This one asked his mom if he could please have the dino thing, but I didn't notice if she said "Ok" or "Not this time, dear."





This is the skylight providing the pleasant illumination in the above.....





I find it so interesting to note which things are the same in the USA and in other places (post offices, for one), and which are different. What do they have that we don't have, and vice versa?

Bet you could find stuff similar to this in the USA.




Kids' clothes -- a lot of them very different from what is seen in stores in the USA. This tshirt with the kitten in pink glasses would fly here, I bet.





I wish we'd had another day in Bayonne. I'd like to have walked around and checked out all of the historical markers.

Bayonne is in Basque country (which straddles the Spain/France border). There are green-and-red flags, signs, shopping bags, you name it, which are the Basque colors, and there are signs in Basque.

On this sign, the first language is French, but the info is translated into English, Basque, Spanish, and Italian. I feel welcomed, as a foreigner, when someone has taken the trouble to help me understand their home.







Here is the building described above.

As a person from a very new place, I was struck time after time that people live in these (to me) very old structures...............





Ok. Time for a spot of lunch.





Our lunch bench was right next to the Château-Vieux. According to Wikipedia, some it dates back to the 12th century, and the governors of the city were based there.





Leaf next to our bench.




Here is my daughter's take on this same beautiful day.



In order to facilitate chronological traverse of these posts, here is a link to the post that comes after this one.

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