St Jean de Luz - Basque country (French side)

For New year's eve, we drove 30 minutes from Hendaye to the very touristy small town and ex-fishing village of St Jean de Luz. Inhabitants are called Luziens and Luziennes, great sounding name! Well technically the Basque name is Donibane Lohizune

Literally everything is red, green and white, you just cannot forget you're in the Basque country here either (and why would you want to), but here are a few of my favourites:

Clothing line with Ks and Xs and a "don't mess with me" kool basque face which I've seen on car stickers, could be a famous ETA guy for what I know

Eusbike with Lauburu eustiker? (I think I'm almost fluent in Basque now)

Cuong was subtly encouraged to support the cause by Basque urinals (seemingly aimed both at kids and adults) 🤣

Following his urinal subliminal brainwashing experience, Cuong bought a Basque coke (EusKola of course!)

The town centre has a lot of pedestrian streets and restaurants, which makes it clean, pretty and a great day out, but to be fussy, perhaps just a bit... touristy to live in? The beach, Socoa, is, as usual, beautiful and attracts families or those who want a calm swim or mellow surfing or windsurfing away from the big rolls. That's because an offshore jetty all along the bay was built to break the waves.

And take a guess who built the jetty? Our old friend Napoleon III (not the Emperor Napoleon I, see the blog on the Dune of Pilat) ! That dude, king of large projects before Elon Musk!!! I feel I really should read his biography now. Apparenty he had them built following terrible hurricanes that ravaged Saint-Jean-de-Luz. In the XIXth century, there were only 1800 inhabitants left while they were 12 000 a century before, the storms having destroyed three quarters of the town and advanced by 200 metres. Talk about mighty weather and seas, worse than climate change worries for this little port!

The jetty, took 12 years until 1876 to build and includes 3 dikes: The Sainte-Barbe dike (180m), the Artha dike (250m), and the central dike and the Socoa dike (325m). They were one of the first structures made out of instant dry concrete.

My parents often brought us to this beach when we were small, but later as teens, ironically we preferred the bigger rolls of Ilbarritz to the gentle St Jean de Luz waves.

Anyway with 20°C outside again, Cuong couldn't resist another swim. It really isn't fair, we eat practically the same thing, we workout together, but his food seems to turn into muscles and six-pack and mine, well not. Pffff. Here's the man going into the water.

... and emerging from the ocean after his swim (you can see the dikes at the horizon).

Baywatch stud

Meanwhile, Didi and I enjoyed rolling in the sand (her), people watching, the sun and hot sand (both). Dogs are not allowed on beaches anywhere on the coast, but noone seems to follow rules so we did as locals do...

Then we went back in town. Cuong likes whipped cream 'white dune petits choux', goats, and Didi chickens.

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Stroll in town:

Kitch sea front building, well off people adopted the town. In fact, we couldn't find an affordable Airbnb there

Port of St Jean de Luz, after all if was a poor fishing village before becoming a touristic spot

Green and Red Kristmas tree

Street and berets

This is our last town to visit in the Basque country. Tonight, we had a last stroll in Hendaye with beautiful pink skies, lots of dogs, strollers, surfers, this town is probably a good plan for the summer.

Off to Barcelona now, seems like it will be a bit of a rocky arrival, bear with us!

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