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    Aquitaine, Bordeaux, Bayonne & France's Basque Country
    Aquitaine, Bordeaux, Bayonne & France's Basque Country
    Aquitaine, Bordeaux, Bayonne & France's Basque Country
    Ebook166 pages1 hour

    Aquitaine, Bordeaux, Bayonne & France's Basque Country

    By Kelby Carr

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    About this ebook

    A thoroughly detailed guide to this region of France, with full information on where to stay, how to get around, the history & culture, sights to see, and what to do. Following are a few excerpts from the guide. Some of Europe's most beautiful cities, stu
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHunter Publishing
    Release dateJul 1, 2009
    ISBN9781588437822
    Aquitaine, Bordeaux, Bayonne & France's Basque Country

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      Book preview

      Aquitaine, Bordeaux, Bayonne & France's Basque Country - Kelby Carr

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      About The Authors

      Kelby Hartson Carr and Michael Carr are a husband-and-wife writing and photography team. They have traveled extensively throughout France and northern Spain. The Carrs lived in the South of France for several months with their daughter Gabrielle, then one year old, while researching this book. Kelby's writing has appeared in newspapers and magazines, and she is the editor of About.com's France for Visitors website. Michael's photography has appeared in magazines, and he is the editor of About.com's Digital Cameras site.

      To Gabrielle, for being such an amazing, tolerant and entertaining travel companion (especially for the age of one).

      Introduction

      History  

      Geography

      Climate

      Flora & Fauna

      Economy

      People & Culture

      Cathedrals & Abbeys

      Cathar Country

      Cuisine & Wine

      Nudism

      Getting There

      By Air

      By Train

      Should You Get A Rail Pass?

      By Bus

      By Car

      Suggested Itineraries  

      Whirlwind City Tour

      Pyrenees Roadtrip

      When To Go

      Customs

      Costs

      Holidays

      Using This Book

      Aquitaine

      Introduction

      Wine Tourism

      Thalassotherapy In The Aquitane

      Bordeaux

      Perigueux

      Agen

      History & Geography

      Getting Around

      Sightseeing

      Shopping

      Adventures

      On Foot

      On Horseback

      On Water

      On Wheels

      Eco-Tourism

      Where to Stay

      Bordeaux

      Perigueux

      Agen

      Where to Eat

      Bordeaux

      Perigueux

      Agen

      Bayonne & the Basque Country

      Biarritz

      St-Jean-De-Luz

      Pau

      History & Geography

      Getting Around

      Sightseeing

      Shopping

      Adventures

      On Foot

      On Horseback

      On Water

      On Wheels

      On Snow

      In The Air

      Eco-Tourism

      Where to Stay

      Bayonne

      Biarritz

      Saint-Jean-De-Luz

      Pau

      Where to Eat

      Bayonne

      Biarritz

      Saint-Jean-De-Luz

      Pau

      Information Sources

      Appendix

      Suggested Reading

      Language

      French

      Basics & Emergencies

      Getting Around

      Sightseeing & Shopping

      Adventures

      Lodging

      Dining

      Spanish

      Basics & Emergencies

      Getting Around

      Sightseeing & Shopping

      Lodging

      Dining

      Catalan

      Basics & Emergencies

      Basque

      Basics & Emergencies

      Introduction

      In Southwest France and the Spanish Pyrenees, sunkissed rooftops blaze a burnt orange. There are sweeping vistas of both mountains and sea. The food is robust, and the wines don't mess around. The narrow streets of the medieval fortified city of Carcassonne are lined with armored knights advertising daily specials at the cafés. World-renowned vineyards dot the landscape in Bordeaux, the most influential wine region in the world. The distinguished university city of Toulouse is regarded as the best place to live by the French themselves. At Cap d'Agde, also known as Naked City and the world's Mecca of nudism, visitors can bank, shop or beachcomb in the buff. Tourists can climb to the eerie ruins at Montsegur, where the Cathar religious sect made a lengthy stand against 10,000 Crusaders before voluntarily marching to their fiery deaths rather than renouncing their spiritual beliefs.

      This area boasts more days of sunshine than most of Europe (over 300 sunny days a year on average in Montpellier, for instance), and features more parkland than much of France – including more than 200,000 acres in Pyrenees National Park alone. Tourists delight in the vast selection of mountain-climbing destinations, ski resorts, spa villages, Gallo-Roman ruins and prehistoric cave paintings. Waterways here include rivers, canals, streams, the Gulf of Gascony, the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

      For those accustomed to the Parisian way of life, this diverse and exotic culture seems like another world. That is almost true. This corner of France was independent for many centuries before being absorbed into the rest of the country, and that fierce sense of autonomy remains strong to this day. There is the southwest of France, and then there is the rest of France, or so the natives vehemently maintain, usually with a contemptuous roll of the eyes and purse of the lips.

      Indeed, many in the Southwest of France feel more connected with their Spanish neighbors to the south than their Parisian neighbors to the north. The bold peaks of the Pyrenees mountains form a natural border connecting France and Spain. The first time we set foot in this area, our Carcassonne cab driver spoke French with a noticeably rolling Spanish R instead of the typical throaty French hhhhr pronunciation.

      On the Spanish side of the range, Catelonia is marked by breathtaking cliffs, expansive beaches and the thriving, hip seaside city of Barcelona. The people here, too, exhibit a fiercely independent spirit and have sought to separate from the rest of Spain. In the Navarre region, men taunt large, dangerous animals for Pamplona's annual Running of the Bulls. The Pyrenees mountains reach their highest peaks in the Aragon region.

      One of the advantages to visiting Southwest France and the Spanish Pyrenees region is that tourists have just begun to discover its riches. This means many wonderful destinations have yet to be overrun by gaping tourists (with a few exceptions, Carcassonne and Barcelona the most notable), and prices remain delightfully reasonable.

      History

      From cavemen to Concorde airplanes, this area has a varied, infinitely interesting and at times gruesome history. Some of the earliest remnants of prehistoric man are present here in cave paintings, many of which are well-preserved, extensive and open for tours.

      Julius Caesar conquered Gaul and this area around 50 BC. That was just the beginning of a string of national identities for various areas of Southwest France and the Spanish Pyrenees Mountain regions, including being conquered by the Visigoths and later being ruled by the Franks around the year 500 AD. The Emperor Charlemagne was crowned in 800 and, soon after, took control of much of the Pyrenees region. It repeatedly changed hands between counts, dukes and other regional leaders.

      When Eleanor of Aquitaine married the future English King Henry ee, this led to British rule of this area for around three centuries before it became part of France.

      Much of Southwest France was not even part of France as recently as 1453, the end of the Hundred Year's War, when England surrendered all of its French territory, except Calais.

      During the Middle Ages, this region was the epicenter for persecution of the Cathars, a group that vocally and publicly questioned the practices of the Catholic Church and was ultimately wiped out.

      Throughout history, there are many instances in which France and Spain warred with one another, and other times when they were allied against

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