We started the day with some emailing to our sons Joel and Aidan, sending them some messages for our daughter Holly, whose 21st birthday we were missing. We felt very out of things and far away as we knew that her party would be underway in a few hours.
For something completely different, we rode to Biarritz today. Keith is a good and very competent rider but I always feel a little out of control, especially going downhill. There is a system here of free bike use from the car park at the edge of the city, the tourist centre and other places too. The bike tracks link Bayonne and several other towns as well as running along the river banks and to the beaches. The track is excellent and keeps cyclists well away from the traffic, even having lanes marked and little sets of traffic lights for the cyclists. It is shared with pedestrians, so some consideration is still required. We rode along the same route we had walked the other day, along the river Adour and partly beside a major road.
It was perfect riding weather and we were wishing that we had packed our bathers. Along the way we passed the famous ‘Chambre d’Armour’, after which a suburb is named. It is a cave in which, according to the story, Laorens, a poor orphan and Saubade, a rich farmer’s daughter used to meet, against her parents’ wishes, swearing to love each other forever. One day a tempest blew up waves that inundated the cave and drowned them.We diverged from the track, down beside the sea and then had the challenge (that I failed and Keith met) of riding up a steep winding cliff road. From here we rode into Biarritz along the footpath and unfortunately I rode a bit too close to the wall and grazed my hand and arm. Luckily minor, but quite painful. As usual with my injuries, I decided to ignore them. It was easy to because we seemed to have ridden over a line into a different land - a land of enormous fairy tale houses, of walled gardens and steps leading to the sea and of palaces.
Biarritz is set around a beautiful sparkling bay, with an ancient walled port to protect boats from the waves. A statue of the Virgin looks out to sea on one of the many small rocky islands, connected to the mainland by a bridge. Although much celebrated in tourist information, she looks small and forlorn against the mega-scale of Biarritz buildings and the lighting equipment surrounding her. Visitors to her rock give her a quick glance, note the cross on the much smaller nearby rock, and then turn their attention to the vastness of sea and land.
On our way down the hill into the city, we passed a Russian Orthodox church and later we found out that it was attended by Russian royal family members when they holidayed here. The Palais hotel, originally a palace for the French royal family, is set in vast, beautifully tended grounds right beside the sea. You can now lunch there for about $A250, even with modest choices from the dessert and drink menus. People drove in and out of the ornate, guarded gates in sports cars and vintage cars. We rode on to the general public beach and had our picnic in the gardens which edge the sand. The other beach areas were backed by bars and restaurants on the same level as the low sea wall. Chairs, shade tents and umbrellas were all available to hire with a tent costing 9.20 Euros ($A16) for a day. Many people did not have any sun protection and were subjecting already red and protesting skin to further exposure. Hats and cover ups were rare, and almost non-existent on the beach. 
St Eugene’s started as a chapel in 1856, was raised to the status of parish church in 1884 and rebuilding on a grander scale started in 1898. St Eugenia was a Spanish martyr, beheaded in 921. The many lilies in the church's decorations are the emblems of Mary and St Eugenie. At the time of rebuilding, services took place in the crypt while work went on above.The crypt is open now as an exhibition space. The side wall tells the story of the church’s development, including the attacks that the clergy faced during the revolution, and the rest of the area was devoted to paintings by Pierre Baldi. Each painting had a verse from the bible as its inspiration. They were in very vivid colours and not realistic, with Baldi’s use of light and his reactions to the verse combining to create the images. We watched a video of Baldi painting and talking about his thought processes and intentions and it was absolutely fascinating to see his ideas come to life on the canvas. I could imagine these paintings in homes, taking a prominent place and defining the ideas and taste of the occupants. In St Jean de Luz we were to see his paintings displayed in the St Jean-Baptiste church; large and powerful paintings which stood out despite their size being diminished in the immensity of that church.
We wandered around the streets in the centre of Biarritz, looking at the clothes and other items for sale at what I thought were fairly high prices, but probably which were probably at ridiculously cheap prices for the patrons of the Palais Hotel. We were looking for St Martins Church, an Anglican church which is now the History Museum. The porch was erected as a memorial to the British officers and men who died in South West France in 1813 and 1814. Queen Victoria visited this memorial in 1889, seven years after it was erected. Presumably she was holidaying here, frolicking in the waves in some voluminous black neck to knee bathing suit, and then presiding over a family get together under a hired umbrella.
St Martins is now a museum of memorabilia about all sorts of different aspects of the history of Biarritz. It was a fascinating treasure trove of interesting items, including the Bonaparte family tree, lots of photos and items relating to various European royal families and in particular to the Prince Imperial, Prince Louis Napoleon who was only twenty-four years old when he was killed by Zulus. Imagine the grief and consternation that that would have caused. A photo of King Edward VII showed him in a canoe descending the rapids in 1910, fully dressed in a suit. A discoid stele (round tombstone) from 1595, a document outlining the obligations and privileges of whale hunters signed by Henry III were among the very old items. A small door in the church was for the use of Cagots, a group of despised people who were considered to be cretins and the carriers of leprosy, amongst other pestilences. They were given holy communion on the end of a stick and were compelled to wear distinctive clothing, with, in some places, a duck or goose foot attached. No-one would touch them and they were forbidden to walk barefoot on a footpath. The only jobs they could do were carpentry and wood cutting (since wood was not believed to be a carrier of pestilence) and surprisingly, butchery. Could that be because meat would be cooked? Their origins are not known but the theories include: descendants of the Visigoths, Saracens, Moorish soldiers or Albigenses. Whoever they were, they were the lowest of the low and had no political, community or church rights and were outcasts.
A stained glass window in the church was dedicated to Harry Owen Rowe, who lived from 1185 – 1962, and who was a Welshman who introduced the game of rugby to France. This suggests that the Anglicans were light on for saints and martyrs or that introducing rugby to the French was, in its own way, a miracle.
A display case was devoted to Ernest Fourneaur, a famous son who was a pioneer of chemotherapy. He was an inventor of sulfamides, a painter and a pharmacologist. The bathers from different eras were suitably 'sun-smart' although it is hard to imagine the knitted men’s outfits looking all that good coming out of the surf. This is just a taste of the melange, and we could have spent longer there, if the attendant had not been clanking his keys pointedly. We did finish off with a heart warming tale a dog called Black, whose heroism and intelligence saved the lives of the captain and crew of the vessel Orphelin in 1882. When all hope had been lost, he swam out through the perilous sea to take a rope out to the ship. He looked very dignified in the photo of him wearing his medal.
Time was running out to return our bicycles but we could see St Josephs not far away, so naturally we raced over and went in. A service was in progress but not in the main part of the church, which was empty. After the glare and the glitz of Biarritz, this church was a well of stillness, with just the murmured service and responses echoing around it. It is a simpler church, but beautiful, with the stained glass windows of female saints standing out and demanding attention.
We collected out bikes, which we had chained to a tree in the park where we had lunch, and set off as fast as possible for home. A father rode past us with his young son’s bike bolted on to the back of his, making a make-shift tandem.
We made it to the parking lot in time to return the bikes and walked home. It was now that my wounds made their presence felt and I recalled that first aid should be rendered immediately, and not after a big day out.
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