Mark had to leave for work quite early on my first day here, so we got up around six and had breakfast together in the hotel.
This is a European chain, catering to business travelers, that struck me as about the same level as a Hilton Garden Inn. It is warm and well-equipped with small rooms and a generous continental breakfast buffet included with the room, as well as a full bar open till 11 pm (although during the week you have to go to the front desk to request your glass of wine). In the breakfast room-slash-bar here is a coffee machine in the European style available nearly all day for free, which I heartily appreciate. I have to hit the café long button twice to fill my coffee cup, but it is good coffee.
I should pause at this moment to apologize again for upside down pictures. I will not be able to fix them until I can get to a desktop computer. I am sorry.
(The hotel bar)
The breakfast spread included about five different kinds of fresh slice-your-own bread including panettone, baguette, wholemeal, pain aux raisins, and a sort of poppyseed pound cake; four different kinds of “Bonne Maman” preserves, which you can buy in the US; butter; jambon Bayonne and jambon blanche; three kinds of medium-hard cheeses; peeled hardboiled eggs; two or three kinds of yogurt and (oh hurray!) fromage blanc; a basket of oranges and a juicer; and a blonde-colored torte labeled “Gateau Basque” which got Mark very excited, as it is apparently his favorite thing around here.
I was busy eating the protein, but I took a moment to taste the Gateau Basque. I have already looked for the recipe online and I just want to tell you, ignore any English-language recipes you find that have puff pastry in them, because they are wrong. The French-language recipes I found look correct. It is supposed to be an eggy cake with a fine crumb, baking-powder leavened, that is rolled out, cut into two circles, and stacked with a pastry cream in between, flavored with vanilla, almond, or rum. It is almost like a jelly roll except not rolled up and with custard in the middle, maybe like a Boston cream pie without the chocolate and only about an inch thick all told. Anyway, it’s bloody marvelous with coffee.
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Mark left, and I gathered my things together and walked across the big river. Bayonne is built at the confluence of a big river, the Adour, and a little river, the Nive. Our hotel is in the quarter called Saint-Esprit, which was a major stop along the pilgrimage route to Compostela (coquilles St Jacques are, incidentally, everywhere). The whole reason that the only wine AOC in the French Basque region developed was so that the monks could sell it to the pilgrims. I haven’t had any of the wine yet. Anyway, on the other side of the Adour, with the Nive running between, are Grand Bayonne and Petit Bayonne. The quays are lined with adorable tall and narrow buildings, shops on the bottom, apartments above.
I spent about six hours wandering around Bayonne. I looked in a lot of shop windows. I visited the cathedral Sainte-Marie, which is really lovely, in the northern Gothic style with spires and flying buttresses. The three part mural of the Passion was one of the most striking I have seen in a church.
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I still felt self-consciously American so I did not have very many conversations, but I managed a few that worked surprisingly well. Something that is pretty amazing: Since the last time I was in France, my ability to hear, parse, and understand spoken French has really taken off. I honestly don’t know why. I have been reading French all year, but I have not been listening to it very much.
Unless the Bayonnais speak particularly clearly and slowly?
Or maybe I have been working so hard on other languages that I have somehow developed my general receptive skill?
I don’t know but it is really kind of shocking. I don’t speak a whole lot better than I did a year ago, in fact I feel very halting and sometimes it is quite difficult to even get a word out. There is a sort of performance anxiety that seems to strike me randomly, or perhaps it is more that certain people, unpredictably, seem to set me at ease while others make me nervous. But the hearing and understanding has really taken off.
I can understand the news anchors on TV.
I answered the ringing room telephone and heard “This is the front desk, we weren’t able to clean your room earlier because you had the do not disturb sign up, and we just wanted to ask if you would like your room cleaned now or is there anything else you need?” and I answered “No, I don’t need anything at now, and I am resting at the moment,” and it wasn’t till I had hung up that it struck me how smoothly that call had gone.
I have discussed chocolates with the woman at the chocolate shop and beer with the guy in the beer shop and leather goods with the guy in the bag shop. And police novels with the bookstore clerk. And washing instructions for the tablecloth I bought. And also I asked the guy fishing off the bridge what kind of fish he was trying to catch.
“La louvine.” That is the name of the fish. Not sure what it is. My technical vocabulary does not extend to angling, even in English.
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For lunch that first day I found a café that served the stuffed red peppers that are particular to the region. They are like the piquillo peppers of Spain — maybe they are the same. These were stuffed with a potato-and-salt-cod puree and baked in a dish with the ubiquitous Basque sauce of tomatoes and red peppers.
So far this is the best thing I have eaten. It is so good. I don’t want to hassle with salt cod but I bet I could stuff these peppers with anything, say cheese, and bake them in the sauce and it would be marvelous.
Anyway, that was the first course; the second course was cod in a cream sauce with vegetable flan. Also good. It was interesting because the waitress brought out scalloped chicken and pasta first, and I had to explain that possibly I had made a mistake, but I meant to order the cod. She said “you ordered the escalope” and I really did not know how to say “I do not think so” and anyway it seemed very likely that I might have messed up, so I apologetically said that maybe I made an error of language and she said it wasn’t serious and she could make a change and I said yes please and she took it away. And then the woman dining at the next table with a companion leaned over and said “You definitely ordered the cod. I heard you.” So I felt better. And I left a tip for the waitress, because I was glad that she didn’t berate me too badly and that she brought me what I wanted at the end.
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The last thing I did that afternoon was spend a couple of hours at the Basque history museum, which was fascinating and quite detailed. I will just leave you with a few photos because it is almost time for Thanksgiving tapas.
Carved bench with convenient flip down table and high back for keeping warm in front of the fire in your traditional basque house.
Painting of nuns going to a funeral which I photographed because it reminded me of “Madeline.”
Ancient dugout canoe dredged up from the nearby river.
Traditional beehive
Funerary stele of a pre-Christian design that is still used today for headstones
Chocolate grinding stone.
The chocolate is very interesting here. Bayonne was an early adopter of chocolate in France, and early center of chocolate making in a tradition that still continues, because Spanish Jews took the techniques with them when they were expelled from Spain and settled in the Basque country, particularly in the quarter near my hotel (the local synagogue is still in the neighborhood).
Not coincidentally, I bought a lot of chocolate today.
Ok, it is time to go out and have tapas. Do not expect to see any turkey, but potatoes and pumpkins may make an appearance. Happy Thanksgiving!
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