Bayonne, France, Monday July 21st

Keith and Christine would love to hear from you with questions, comments, personal news and any news at all from Australia or wherever you are. We will reply to all emails! Please write to either windlechristine@gmail.com or windle.keith@gmail.com

I am writing this and the next few days some time after the events, having been lulled into lazy starts and tourist days in this darling town of Bayonne. It has everything and we feel very much at home here. Each day we think of something to do and it is always in do-able walking, cycling or bus trip distance for us. After my one experience of the impersonal ‘haut marche’, which has everything and then some more, we have preferred to buy our supplies at the local shop where we are greeted as friends and have a chat twice a day. Catherine is a very kind and helpful landlady and we get on well. Jan comes and goes to his skating, but is ever helpful with language, with our main conversations being in the mornings and evenings.

Today, we left the cat to do the dishes as we set off to the Bonnat Museum of Bayonne.

We skirted the old castle where the parked motorbikes provided another example of the juxtaposition of old and new here.

We crossed the Nive river onto the triangle between the Nive and the Adour rivers. An austere building proclaimed itself to be the ‘Mixed Public Primary School of Little Bayonne’, making a set for us of the school buildings of former times, since we had already seen the equally forbidding old Secondary schools for boys and for girls. The museum is in a very grand building, whose two classical style statues above the door are posed in such a way that they could be any teenagers today.

Inside there is a central gallery with a sunken sitting area in the middle. Stairs lead up to many connecting rooms on the first and second floors. Louis Bonnat, for whom the gallery is named, was a famous artist who was born in Bayonne in 1833. His father died while he was a child and after that the city of Bayonne twice financially supported his artistic studies. He was a painter of tableaux and of portraits of many people, including Victor Hugo, Louis Pasteur and Barye, the sculptor. He was also a supporter of other artists and a collector of antiquities and art works. It was his dream to have a museum of art at Bayonne and he gave part of his collection to establish it in 1901. The rest followed after his death in 1922. His collection was actually left to the state, but on the condition that it be displayed in Bayonne. Sitting in the centre of the downstairs gallery, we could examine the triptych, painted of Leon Bonnat, with his artist friends, some his famous contemporaries and some his students. It is painted in the fauve style, is full of light colours and dappled brushwork, and the artists are all formally dressed, to our eye, for a get-together by river. There is only one woman and Bonnat looks like a banker or a member of the British royal family. In 1923 a statue of Bonnat was placed in front of the town hall at Bayonne but in 1943 it was taken by the Germans during the occupation and melted down. The Museum was renovated between 1974 and 1979, and is an absolute pleasure to visit.

We started on the second floor, where private collectors, Monsieur and Madame Milgrom, had lent thirty-two of their pieces for display. The exhibition was prefaced with a thought provoking piece about the nature of collecting and of selecting paintings to buy. It was not unlike the discussion about photography at the Basque Museum, but carried it a step further, since all elements of a painting are chosen by the painter and then the collector comes into it with his priorities and agendas. Finally, by selecting from a collection, what we see has yet again been subjected to an intellectual sifting process. To encourage thought about these issues, many of the paintings had questions projected onto the floor or wall relating to details, motivations of the characters portrayed, artistic intent and the stylistic fashions of the day.

All painting amazes me – that anyone could envisage the effect of paint, relate it to distance and form, consider the accumulated impact of strokes, colours and light, and then actually do it is just incredible. We spent several hours here really looking into the paintings in great depth, quite apart from whether they appealed to us or not. The ‘Portrait of a Magistrate’, by Jean-Baptise Jouvenet, was accompanied by notes regarding the letter in his hand – what had he just learnt? It was painted very early in the 18^th century, at a time when painters had moved beyond representing the physical and the symbolic, and were concerned to express psychological states as well. In contrast, the portrait of Cardinal de Richelieu, painted in the 17^th century by Philippe de Champaigne, is static and has the traditional, but unnatural, pose of one extended finger.

We are now so much better able to pick out references to bible stories and many of these paintings had biblical themes. In one, the holy family is passing some ruins in Egypt and we wondered if we had seen the same ones. Another, by Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne, showed Jesus with the Cannanean, who is asking his help because her daughter is afflicted. The museum’s question directed us to a man sitting beneath a tree, who is speaking to two peasants passing by. What is he saying? That simple question prompted us to think of the political, religious and social setting of the painting. Another painting of Moses being let go on the waters by Nicolas Colombel, was equally interesting in foreground and background when viewed in this broader light, and surprised us with what looked to be a stray nude sunbaker in the gloom over to one side. There is so much to know and to understand regarding symbolism, tradition and common understandings that we don’t share – and want to know more about. It feels as if I am just starting out in so many fields of knowledge and interest but it is impossible not to be stimulated into interest when there is the time and the opportunity to ‘open the doors’.

An exhibition of art from the Middle Ages showed the heavy leaning to religious themes and no tiptoeing around gruesome topics such as ‘The Decapitation of Saint Fabien’. This was one in a series which also showed his election as pope, which was unanimous despite many other worthies being considered, because a dove happened to land on his head. A beautiful painting shows St Martin, dressed in medieval style, giving his warm cloak to a poor man, who is really Jesus.

A room was devoted to Rubens, with sketches and some paintings. The studies were complex and beautiful. Tapestries from the 16^th century were like paintings and it was during the Renaissance that tapestry makers were for the first time asked to make a tapestry of a painting, as opposed to always creating their own designs.

Much of the museum is devoted to the French School of artists from the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th Centuries. A wonderful and very touching painting, La Charite Romaine by Simon Vouet, shows a young girl feeding her imprisoned father.

The room of Spanish artists had several paintings by El Greco including his St Jerome’, a self-portrait by Goya which we had seen as prints and a sad and impossible to walk by painting of ‘Femme Desesperee’, which was painted by Jose de Ribera, which was painted after the artist’s daughter had been violated.

After looking at some very elaborate, small sculptures from the French school, nearly all of which were on classical themes, we were at the ground floor, where the paintings by Bonnat were displayed, along with the sculpted busts of many famous French artists. Bonnat was a prolific painter and thinker, and his paintings are absolutely marvellous.

After this treat, Keith stayed home while Catherine and I went to the sports store to select some good mountain walking shoes for me. The summer sale was on but, of course, the shoes that suited my feet were regular price. Equally in the furniture store, pieces were reduced but none that suited Catherine’s taste. These big stores are in Englet, a nearby town that seems to be mostly light industrial and a big store and factory outlets centre, but which must have an old heart somewhere.

After a quick tea, Catherine, Keith and I went to a film in the summer film festival. Called ‘The Trip to the Pyrenees’, it featured two well respected French actors who should have known better that to sign up for it. The story line of a couple of comedians getting away from it all, with the husband secretly hoping to cure the wife of her nymphomaniac tendencies, and of a mysterious bear in the region, just didn’t cut it. It wasn’t just our lack of ability to pick up the subtleties of the comedy because there was very little laughter from the other fifteen or so people who had been foolish enough to come. Once three friars had been added bathing nude, and the bear turned out to be a man, the film descended even further into desperate ‘time on’ land. We all agreed that it was a pretty stupid film and that the one thing worth going for had been the magnificent scenery of the Pyrenees, where we would be going walking the next day.

Bayonne, France, Sunday July 20th

Keith and Christine would love to hear from you with questions, comments, personal news and any news at all from Australia or wherever you are. We will reply to all emails! Please write to either windlechristine@gmail.com or windle.keith@gmail.com

What a fantastic day – we spent most of it in the Museum of Basque Culture and the History of Bayonne. It is across the Nive River in Petit Bayonne, so we walked there, anticipating a short visit, a picnic lunch and a walk. We were at the museum for about five hours and even Keith was not overwhelmed by museum fatigue until the folk dancing section where I wanted to watch all the dancing videos.

There are twenty-four rooms, each with a different theme, and before the first, there was an interesting article to read about the use of photographs. It talked about the way that photos give a very select version of reality, being in the first place someone’s choice of subject, and in the second, the way that the subject agrees to be presented. There is also the question of the different emphasis in different eras, with static portraits giving way to ethnographic generalities and later to the aberrant. Finally, what is not presented is often just as important in understanding a culture as is what appears in the pictures. This warning was followed up at the end, reminding us that it is easy to have the impression that the past was a time of sunny days and an ideal rural paradise.

Basque people have discs on their tombs and our visit started with an exhibition of them, in a darkened room echoing with religious music.

The next room showed traditional farm implements and they were mostly new to us. They were well labelled in French, Basque and Spanish, and since we had our new dictionary with us, we were able to learn lots. I had to look up specialist words, but it was not too bad, and certainly well worth the effort. In the photo I appear to have gone mad since I seem to be looking up an umbrella, but in fact I was looking up words that told us that it belonged to the customs officer and that he would carry it, along with his folding bed, in his raids on contraband alcohol sales in the countryside.

Another contraband item was chocolate, and we saw the curved rolling boards for crushing the cocoa beans.

Many of the items were made from wood, even buckets and cups.

Some earlier cart wheels were solid and great attention was paid to the decorative headwear and collars for cattle, prized creatures that supported the rural lifestyle. We could understand the working of a wooden seed planting machine, which was cleverly but simply made, but were at a loss with some other mechanical gadgets, even though we could check the words. Some of our farmer friends would have loved this section, and would have been able to compare items from early days in Australian farming with those on display here.

Next we watched a 1930 documentary film called ‘Le Pays des Basques’ (The Country of the Basques) which started with the singing of a male Basque choir and included many other songs and virtually no speaking. Little placards told the main messages, with the story line being really an opportunity to record the Basque way of life. A young man goes through various activities, such as the annual moving of sheep to the mountains, festivals, a death in the family, and he finally migrates to America, leaving his sweetheart behind. Most of the items we had seen in the pastoral section were being used and it was the perfect accompaniment to the static displays. A ‘pastoral’ (a play performed on a makeshift stage) was acted only by men and featured Napoleon I and Josephine, with an assassination attempt on their lives. The culprits were caught and killed, with the stage hands being two ladies dressed as maids who thoughtfully moved some cushions into position for the bodies to fall onto.

Each section was prefaced with general information in the three languages, and from those we gained more understanding of the special features of traditional Basque culture. The Basque house had a complex and prominent role in that it was not just a place of residence. It was also an economic unit, a social venue and the origin of an individual. The family, and an individual took, its name from the house, which was passed down to a single inheritor who could be male or female. Others joined the family through birth or marriage and then belonged to that house, where ‘young masters’ and ‘old masters’ had the same rights and responsibilities. Each house was represented at the church with a reserved section for the mistress and other women of the house and at the cemetery with a stone tomb for burials. The house and sepulchre were connected by a road, which symbolised the connection between the physical and spiritual worlds. In general, houses were maintained over centuries, with most having a single roofline for people, animals, tools and storage. Houses faced east, with their backs to the bad weather, with a large, ornamental portal. Sometimes two buildings were placed at right angles and linked with a slate covering. Inside, there was a large central room which was the hub of all activities, where people worked and socialised. There would be a large fireplace and the museum had tried to create the atmosphere of firelight and candles where the family and neighbours would gather to tell stories and sing old songs. There we listened to an audio tape of stories in Basque, French and Gascoyne, with French being the only one we could follow or recognise for sure.

In some areas the kitchen fireplace was in the centre of the large room, with a metal rack inserted in the chimney, where pots could hang down and where neighbours would hang their contributions to shared meals. The next few rooms were set up in Basque country style, with carefully carved furniture, and hand made lace and embroidered items for decoration. Crafts all related to practical purposes, but developed the items beyond the basic with artistic flair. Artisans were vital to supplying village needs prior to the Industrial Revolution, with weavers, braid makers, walking stick makers, clog makers, seamstresses and espadrille makers all working for a small but loyal clientele. Espadrilles (Basque shoes) were, and still are, regularly worn here, being part of the tradition of this area. You could buy a handcrafted pair for 79 euros at the museum or a pair of doubtful origin for 19 euros in the streets.

A clothing display showed that married women wore black with long mantillas and unmarried women wore more colourful clothing and jewellery. The clothes on display had a distinctly Spanish look.

Religion played a very big part in everyone’s lives, with the church and clergy being an integral part of all activities (except, of course, the contraband activities, which the film had depicted as involving much hiding, sly sales, hunting down by the police and running away). One room was devoted to religious statues in wood, many of which were very old and carved very simply. The next display was about the dance heritage which is connected to festivals and involves a range of characters and fabulous costumes, quite apart from the dances such as the national dance, the Fandango, that everyone can join in. Many of the dances tell stories, but others are for the demonstration of skills. One in particular would have had the appeal that car racing sometimes does, where the crowd is as much interested to see if disaster will happen as to watch the skills. The dancer does fancy footwork around a glass of wine sitting on the ground and some steps involve jumping onto, and balancing on, the rim of the glass. In the video of dancing, four people perform and one does knock the glass over, spilling the wine, although not breaking the glass on this occasion. Vibrant paintings around the walls illustrated the life and vitality of festivals and social life.

A comprehensive display on pelota – a sport involving a long curved basket-like catcher worn on one hand – explained that there are many different forms of this sport. Every village has a ‘fronton’ (blank shaped wall) in the square, with an open space facing it, for pelota to be played. I was fascinated to watch a video on ball making, a tedious but important task in the old days when, as now, pelota was played competitively against other villages and where the best players are heroes.

Bull fighting was also a pastime, along with running of the bulls. In one of our tourist brochures it announces the ‘running of the cows’ so perhaps that is the local variation.

Paintings and information about famous people and the history of Bayonne included Napoleon of course, and also Basques who had contributed to the development of the New World. Simon Bolivar, of Basque origins, led various independence struggles against Spain in South America. At one stage he was president of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, which is named after him.

A display recognised the Jewish community, established here after the Spanish Inquisition and also by Jews fleeing from Portugal, and the significant part it has played in the cultural and commercial development of Bayonne. Religious wars led to an increase in access to Basque in written form, with the printing of the Bible and other texts in Basque by the Protestants. Even the Catholics were not all of one mind, with the Jesuits being opposed by those in Bayonne, who favoured Jansenism with its emphasis on original sin, human depravity and the need for divine grace. After the revolution of 1789 France was organised in departments on secular grounds and many from this region were deported to neighbouring areas, on suspicion that they had consorted with Spain, the enemy. During the 19^th century the contentious areas between France and Spain disappear with the borders being agreed to in the Treaty of Bayonne in 1856. When Ferdinand VII came to the Spanish throne, Spanish Basque Carlistes (who did not favour Ferdinand’s wish to pass the throne to his eldest daughter, Isabelle, instead of to his brother’s son, Charles, the legitimate heir), engaged in a war against their king. French Basques supported them, against the wishes of the French government. At the end of the 19^th century, the Basque National Party was formed. During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), Spanish Basque republicans sought refuge in Basque regions of France, with many returning after Franco’s death in 1975.

A relief map of Bayonne’s maritime history, so big that you walked through it along a river, was intriguing and confusing for us, as we tried to find our bearings and finally we reached the room about the rituals associated with death. When the master of the house died, the mistress must tell the bees and the other animals, so that they would be careful, knowing that death was abroad. On a more practical level, she must also tell the first neighbour, who would then have responsibility for every other aspect of spreading the word, preparing the body, cooking for and greeting visitors, making funeral arrangements and organising the tombstone.

I asked Keith if he would like to look through the museum’s 3000 photos not on display but available for perusal and he very nobly said “Yes, but not today.” Even I didn’t think that I could manage it at 4 pm, having had no lunch. We both agreed that this was one of the most interesting and beautifully set out museums that we have been in.

We had lunch in front of the very formal town hall theatre, where there are beautiful patterns set into the paving.

Our final visit for the day was to the Cathedral, set on a hill in the heart of the city, which is nearly smothered by its neighbouring buildings but whose spires rise above everything and can be seen from just about everywhere. Inside the cathedral is long, and very high with vaulted ceilings. Started in the 13^th century, it was still being added to and modified in the 19^th century. It is very beautiful and has chapels devoted to saints and the Virgin Mary and large paintings of the Stations of the Cross around its walls. One chapel commemorates Joan of Arc, with a statue of her and with a large inscription in stone recalling the victory of the French over the English in 1451. A statue of the Virgin was given by a Protestant sculptor as an act of ecumenism, with one by a Catholic sculptor being given to a Protestant church in Paris. Unfortunately we were too late to see the cloisters, so they will have to wait for another day. Outside, many of the statues are missing, destroyed in the 1789 revolution, so for a cathedral, it is not very ornate. The spires are tall and impressive and really make it distinctive.

We wandered back though some small streets and past the remains of the Roman fortifications. The old castle is not open and is solid, but not exciting. Bayonne is not an area of ostentatious decoration, but rather of detail and of each building contributing to the look as a whole. As we crossed a major road, we noted with amusement the sign that summarised travel needs for motorists with a big arrow being for ‘Other directions’.

In the streets of Bayonne

Bayonne, France, Saturday July 19th

Keith and Christine would love to hear from you with questions, comments, personal news and any news at all from Australia or wherever you are. We will reply to all emails! Please write to either windlechristine@gmail.com or windle.keith@gmail.com

Today was our day for exploring the Nive, the smaller river that splits the town into three parts, along with the Adour. The Nive is really a watery main street with traditional tall, thin Basque style houses facing onto it and restaurants and market stalls running along the banks. Bridges close together allow for easy crossing and steps and ramps down to the water show that river transport must once have played a major role in moving goods and people in and out of the city. There is no commercial activity visible on this river now. Most of the buildings in the city centre are built on long thin plots of land running between narrow lanes which are now pedestrian thoroughfares. It has the look of a child’s town set, with all the buildings pushed together inexpertly, creating curving and irregular roads all leading to the cathedral. It is really charming and retains its old character whilst having a completely modern commercial and business centre. In this run up to the Festival of Bayonne, buntings in the Basque colours of red and green stretch back and forth across the streets from house to house.

We had made an early start so the market stalls were just being set up as we arrived. We have seen beggars in Bayonne, some appearing to be young and not disabled and to us it was a mystery as to why they would beg. Here on the bridge we saw a most ancient Basque man, wearing his beret and standing beside his one case of potatoes with his homemade bucket scales, ready to convert his labour into money to see him through the next week. There was no pitying him, poor as he appeared to be, because he retained such great dignity and his eyes, narrowed against the glare, were clear and sharp. He did not tout for sales, but waited quietly for purchasers to come to him. Other stalls on the bridge were of the lower key variety, but down in front of the covered market, many larger stalls were setting up in the sunshine.

With no purchases to make, we strolled back over the bridge, passed the remains of the city walls and followed the path along the river, meeting many people carrying large baskets and cloth bags. At one stage a rickety old station wagon with a sleeping older passenger and a load of trestle tables and produce wheezed its way past, its elderly driver probably having risen very early to harvest his produce for sale.

We ran out of track at a rail bridge so made our way back to cross the river at a highway bridge with no charm (except for the wonderful flower pots), and from then on we were on the bike and walking track and out in the country. The track was well used by cyclists, walkers and runners, with everyone out enjoying such a beautiful morning. The river was graced by rowers and small private jetties, some with boats tied up. Now and then we passed a large farm house and grounds, some still being used for animals and crops and others now large rambling gardens with trees.

A bleak caravan park with long shaggy grass and stony areas proclaimed itself as the municipal camping ground for July and August. We didn’t see any amenities blocks and we did see a man soaping himself up and rinsing himself off in a basin, so either they were far away or it is a pretty basic place. After about three kilometres we came to an enigmatic sign which we see everywhere and which we presume means ‘be careful’. It was at the start of a small inoffensive looking, roadside forest so we weren’t sure whether there were wolves or what prowling about in there to be careful of.

On the way back we bought some basil – I thought there wasn’t any but it was simply that there are so many varieties that I haven’t seen. We had a very late lunch with a tomato and basil salad, and then I blogged away at the backlog of days while Keith had a sleep. It was a lazy time, outside under the sun umbrella in Catherine’s green and pretty garden, and the evening just drifted past.The tall spires of the Cathedral can be seen above the rooftops from almost anywhere in Bayonne.

The Town Hall used to be a theatre and it is decorated with a set of statues on the roof, one of which has a strong resemblance to the Statue of Liberty, which was donated to the USA by France.
A string trio busking in the streets of Bayonne.