St. Jean de Luz Birthday

On the way back from Bordeaux, we spent Monday, my thirty-first birthday, in St. Jean de Luz, in southern France. In fact, St. Jean de Luz is part of the French Basque Country. It was strange for us, regular visitors to the Spanish Basque Country, to see the Basque flag and hear French being spoken. The truth is, however, we heard very little French spoken. Since October 12th is Spain's National Day, the entire town was crawling with Spaniards on holiday. St. Jean de Luz's primary attraction is its semi-circular beach. Originally a fishing villiage, it became a popular destination for wealthy Brits in the nineteenth century and now has a thriving tourism industry.

The day was a considerable letdown for us. Not only was the weather a little drizzly, but we had just been to the beautiful medieval Saint Émilion the day before, and St. Jean de Luz was quite lackluster in comparison. Also, we live in a fishing village right next to a beach a hundred times better than that of St. Jean de Luz, so why would we want to spend a day in a similar town filled with Spaniards when we could be at home doing the same thing? We had lunch, went to the tourism office, realized there weren't any sights we wanted to see, and headed home.

This is St. Jean de Luz's semi-circular beach as seen from the air.

Cloudy beach panorama.

Later the sun came out so I had to take another panoramic shot.

We really wanted to buy this í¼ber-French hat for Nora, but the shop was closed when we walked by it, and after lunch we forgot to go back for it.

St. Jean de Luz Harbor

A thirty-one year old in St. Jean de Luz.