LA PETITE SOULAN

The road heads towards the cloudy meadows of the Pyrenean mountains. The villages are buried in the folds of the landscape. You find an authentically Basque village with its fronton, its pretty inns with flowery facades and its houses with windows cut into the thickness of the wall. Houses with whitewashed walls, red, blue or green shutters, tightly packed together with the Basque cross motif. And a venerable church with its three floors of galleries. It could be Ascain, Sarre, Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle or Espelette... One eats there wonderfully: sheep cheese from the Aldudes valley, chipirons that have bathed in their ink, Basque pâté, a small wine from Irouléguy, Bayonne ham, Espelette chilli peppers... Or the Maison Olhabidea, at the very end of a stony path, an old 16th century farmhouse offering table d'hôtes.

Further on, one finds Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port or Saint-Etienne-de-Baïgorry. In the distance, the first folds of the Pyrenees proudly raise their snowy summits. What you see around is green, beautifully green... The paths lead you along the border line with Spain. It is a land of shade and warm showers that turn the undergrowth into a carpet of green-shaded ferns.