Crossing the border to... Francia

Last Friday (not yesterday) CIDE planned a group trip to the south of France and another Basque city in Spain called Hondarribia. It was a very early morning starting at 7am... And I hear it was a very scenic bus ride, but I slept through the whole thing. We arrived in a small French town called Bayona (Bayonne) that was one of those classic picturesque cities right on a river. We had a brief tour of the main landmarks like Castillo Viejo and La Catedral de Santa Maria, but then we we mostly on our own for the rest of our stay.

We were told Bayona was known for the chocolate so we were determined to find a yummy chocolate shop. We stopped into a pastry shop first and I swear some of the things in those cases looked fake. Kate is obessed with fruit tarts so she died and went to heaven. We both treated ourselves with a little snack... but still wanted to try some chcoolate. We back-tracked to a little Chocolaterie and decided to try out their "Le Special de la Maison." I knew what "maison" was! We each recieved a frothy cup of hot chocolate with heavy cream to spoon in. I have never had a better cup of hot chocolate in my life. It was like a was drinking a chocolate bar. Unfortunately my group and I didn't purchase any other chocolate or think to buy any fresh french bread, but I was still satisfied with my choice. We explored a little more and then loaded back on to the buses and back across the Spanish border. We were fed another humongous three course lunch, where in one of the courses I am not sure what kind of meat I ate... But it was all filling nonetheless.

We headed to Hondarribia next. Another quaint little town on the water, but this time we had the option of doing everything on our own. The old part of the town is entirely surrounded by a medieval stone wall and there were different Puertas that made for entrances into different parts of the town. We walked around and saw the old Castillo of Carlos V... not much of anything. And then we found the Iglesia de Santa Maria, but it was under construction and we couldn't go in. So mainly my friends and I spent our time just walking around and taking pictures. It's amazing that little towns like this still actually exist.