Bayonne
October 2023: Basque Country, France & Spain
An 12-day (11 night) tour taking in the vibrant southern French cities of Toulouse & Bordeaux, and the Basque Country on both the French and Spanish sides. Staying in Pau, Biarritz, Pamplona and the Spanish Basque resort of San Sebastián, we will also be visiting Bilbao and Gernika.
Pre-tour Option: Barcelona
September 29 – October 2: Three nights B & B in the Hotel Rivoli Rambla, $531 per person in twin or double room, $846 for single. Besides the hotel, option includes train transportation from Barcelona to Toulouse.
Monday 2nd October TOUR BEGINS Meet in TOULOUSE (2 nights)
The thriving city of Toulouse, centre of France’s aerospace industry, is well served by flights. The TGV train from Paris takes four-and-a-half hours: for example, the 11.10 a.m. train out of Paris (Gare Montparnasse) gets into Toulouse around 3.30 p.m.
Check into the Mercure Toulouse Centre Wilson Capitol Hotel which is half a mile from the train station, and near the central Capitole square (2 nights here). Toulouse is the capital of the Occitanie region, and one of the principal cities in south west France, with a metropolitan area population of around 700,000. We will meet up for a drink at 5.30 p.m., and get an introduction to the tour from our Guide Dr Andrew Thomson. Then to the Capitole square for our evening meal together.
Tuesday 3rd Toulouse
9.00 a.m. walking tour of the city by Dr T, with a coffee stop by the Garonne River, principal river of the south-west. Toulouse is known as the Red City for the rich colour of its multiple brick buildings. It is famous for its cuisine, its rich heritage of historic buildings, its university founded in 1229 (with 130,000 students – 15,000 of whom are foreign), and its aerospace industry: the first flight of Concorde was from here in 1969.
After coffee we will visit the Jacobin monastery complex, an amazing collection of buildings from the 1200s which had fallen into complete disuse until restoration was started from the 1970s onwards.
In the afternoon we travel by coach out to the Airbus production plant for a tour, including a view over the new A350XWB production line, and a visit to the attached aerospace museum, Aeroscopia, where we can step aboard a Concorde, Caravelle, A300 – Airbus’ first venture in the mid-70s – and the world’s largest passenger airliner the A380.
Evening meal together.
Wednesday 4th St Bertrand-de-Comminges, Pau, Bayonne (3 nights)
9.00 am departure. Drive 1 hour 45 minutes to St Bertrand-de-Comminges, a pretty hilltop medieval village on the edge of the Pyrenees. Our visit will include the Romanesque/Gothic cathedral – one of the prime stops on the southern pilgrimage route to St Jacques de Compostella. Free time for lunch here, then drive 90 minutes west to the city of Pau, capital of the ancient region of Béarn, whose geographical situation as gateway to the Pyrenees made it famous as a grand 19th century resort. Coffee stop, including a short stroll on the famous Boulevard des Pyrenees avenue with fine views (weather permitting) of the Pyrenean peaks to the south.
Then another 90 minutes west to the city of Bayonne, famous for its ham (the French equivalent of Italian Parma or Spanish Serrano ham), and for giving its name to the bayonet. Bayonne is an attractive ancient city on the River Adour, just six miles from the Atlantic coast. Check-in to Mercure Bayonne Centre Le Grand Hotel for 3 nights. Evening meal together.
Thursday 5th Biarritz & Bayonne
9.00 am departure. Drive 20 minutes west to the Atlantic coastal resort of Biarritz, made famous by the Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III (1851-70); it became a well-known casino resort – British King Edward VII and Winston Churchill were amongst its regulars. Short walking tour with Dr T, taking in its surfing beaches, fine seaside Belle Époque architecture, and a coffee pause. Back to Bayonne for free time for lunch, before a city walking tour ending at the Musée Basque (easy walk back to hotel). Bayonne regards itself as the gateway to the French Basque Country, and the museum makes a good introduction. Finish mid-afternoon: welcome down-time, before our evening meal together.
Friday 6th French Basque Country
9.00 a.m. departure. Morning drive out into the French Basque Country, the beautiful foothills of the Atlantic end of the Pyrenees. First stop is a tour of a red pepper farm and workshop, L’Atelier du Piment, where we will learn about the production process of the red peppers the French Basque Country is famous for – just weeks ahead of the local Pepper Festival. Then into the pretty village of Espelette with a wonderful collection of Basque houses. Here we have a group lunch, followed by time in the great mix of shops. From there it’s a 40-minute drive through spectacular countryside over a pass and down to the pretty seaside town of St Jean-de-Luz: city walking tour by Dr T, including refreshment stop; we’ll pass the mansion where the young Louis XIV stayed before his marriage in the church next day to Maria Teresa of Spain, and go inside the church where it took place. 40 minutes to Bayonne
Free evening – enjoy your own evening meal in one of the many restaurants on offer in Bayonne.
Saturday 7th Across into Spain: Roncesvalles Pass & Pamplona (overnight)
9.00 am departure. Drive one hour through the foothills of the Pyrenees to the town of St Jean-Pied-de-Port. This is where four different pilgrimage routes across France converge before heading over the pass into Spain for the rest of the route to St Jacques de Compostella (in the far north-west corner of Spain). It is the starting point for many present-day long-distance hikers, taking the old route (the Camino de Santiago).
Coffee here, before we drive one hour up to the Pass of Roncesvalles, the crossing point to Spain since ancient times, mentioned in the Song of Roland, a 9th-century epic about Charlemagne’s troops fighting off the ‘Moors’ (the Muslim rulers of Spain at the time).
We are now in the Spanish province of Navarre. Group snack lunch in a pub by the Roncesvalles monastic complex. After lunch we drive one hour down onto the plains for our overnight stay in the Navarrese capital of Pamplona (population 200,000), famous for its crazy Running of the Bulls each July; Ernest Hemingway wrote his first novel Fiesta: the Sun Also Rises following his visits here.
After check-in at the Hotel Albret, Pamplona. (2 miles from the downtown) and some downtime, we’ll be dropped in the city centre: Dr T will take us on a walking tour along the bull-running route, before free time for a wander in the Cathedral quarter (with views from the city walls) or shopping, or maybe a drink on the central Plaza de Castillo. Group meal nearby at 8 p.m. (the earliest we could negotiate – 9 pm is the standard Spanish start time for dinner!)
Sunday 8th Spanish Basque Country: Bilbao to San Sebastián (3 nights)
9.00 am departure. Drive 2 hours north-west to Bilbao, industrial hub of the Basque Country. With a metropolitan area of around a million people, by the 1980s Bilbao had become a classic rust-belt city as its steel and port activities contracted. The city was transformed by the opening in 1997 of the stunning Guggenheim Museum building designed by Frank Gehry – this brought a boom in tourism, as low-cost airlines such as Easy Jet put weekends in Bilbao within reach of Brits, Germans, Scandinavians, etc.
Visit the museum (+ time for a snack lunch here), then transfer by coach to the old town for short walk and free time for coffee and enjoying the narrow streets. Drive 1 hour 25 minutes to San Sebastián, largest city on the Basque coast (pop. 200,000), where we check in to the Hotel San Sebastian Orly for 3 nights. Evening meal together.
Monday 9th Guernica
9.00 a.m.departure for a drive 1 hour 15 minutes west for coffee in the town of Gernika (Guernica), famously bombed in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. We have visits to both the Gernika Peace Museum and the Gernika Assembly Hall, site of the Basque Country’s oldest parliament. Back in San Sebastian around 4.30 p.m.
Evening meal together near the hotel at 8 p.m.
Tuesday 10th San Sebastián; afternoon free
9.30 a.m. Dr T walking tour of San Sebastian taking in the Parte Vieja (Old Town), and the newer town that grew up with 19th-century tourism – with fine Belle Epoque houses (late-Victorian/Edwardian era) – including the city’s finest beach, the Playa de La Cocha. After coffee we will take in the Aquarium. We finish with a group lunch at a busy little city-centre restaurant.
Free afternoon and evening to explore this great city.
Wednesday 11th To BORDEAUX (1 night)
9.00 a.m. departure. Three hour drive north across the French border and up to Bordeaux, the regional capital for the Nouvelle Aquitaine region (metropolitan area population approx. 800,000). A long-established Atlantic port, Bordeaux grew wealthy through the slave trade; in the 19th-century it developed as the hub of a fine wine growing area.
Our first stop will be at the Cité du Vin, a new site in the converted docklands that tells the story of the Bordeaux vineyards, in a worldwide context; excellently done. The visit concludes with a glass of wine on the 8th floor panoramic terrace (included). From here we’ll drive 15 minutes downtown, to be dropped for a one-hour city walking tour by DrT before we check-in to the centralHotel de Normandie. Group evening meal.
Thursday 12th Bordeaux Vineyard Tour & Lunch, TGV to Paris
9:45 a.m. checkout and departure for visit and lunch at the Château Kirwan. 11:00 guided tour of the wine-making facilities with an English-speaking guide. 11.45am: Tasting of one vintage of Château Kirwan – Grand Cru Classé with 3 appetizers per person, 12.00: Lunch in the panoramic room with the service of 3 wines. 14.00 return to Bordeaux train station and board 15:48 TGV train for Gare Montparnasse in Paris, arriving at 17:57. Short walk to Hotel Miramar Paris Montparnasse. Since lunch was included, dinner is on your own. Enjoy an evening in a beautiful part of Paris.
Friday 13th Departure day
We will need to organize vans or taxis to get out to Paris CDG in time for flights to the USA.
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| PARTICIPANTS | Room | Options |
| Carrol Smith & Gail Jarratt | T | Barcelona, CDG 10/17 |
| Greg & Judy Parks | D | Barcelona, CDG 10/13 |
| Roxie Montesanto & Ron Jenkins | T | Barcelona, Bordeaux 10/13 |
| Mike Chu & Ana Liu | D | Toulouse 10/2, Independent |
| Gretchen Quinn & Rebecca Marti | T | GQ: Barcelona, CDG 10/13: |
| Frani Jenkins & Bart Lohnes | D | Barcelona, CDG 10/13 |
| Bohn & Vivien Smith | D | Barcelona, CDG 10/13 |
| Jane & Tom Ritley | D | Barcelona, CDG 10/13 |
| Melissa & Tom Mieras | D | Toulouse 10/1, CDG 10/13 |
| Robert & Karen Moody | D | Toulouse 10/1, CDG 10/13 |
| Xavier & Polly Pena | D | Barcelona, CDG 10/13 |
| Scott Plummer | S | Barcelona, CDG10/13 |
| Cindy Abbott | S | Barcelona, CDG 10/13 |
| Mel Cohen | S | Barcelona, CDG10/13 |