The view from Roxeth is very fine. The playing fields of Harrow School, the spire of St Mary's Church and various villas on the slopes below.
However Roxeth isn't the cultured enclave at the top of Harrow Hill it's a suburb at the bottom, originally a villageto the southwest, hence arguably Harrow-Under-The Hill. It's another example of somewhere that does have a station, indeed it has two, but ever since the bigger one was called South Harrow in 1903 the original name's been ebbing away. It lingers in streetnames, also the local library, park and two schools, whereas the local authority ward of the same name is a modern invention and doesn't quite match the original Roxeth at all. Let's start on the opposite side of the road to my first photo where we find Roxeth's oldest building, a 17th century weatherboarded farmhouse called Roxeth Farm.
Alas the owners have sought to shield their property behind a very high hedge so all you can see is a hipped roof from the side and a sash-windowed slot at the front, but it does look to be delightfully wonky. I had wondered if the barn out back was another rural survivor but no, it's one of three pavilions for Harrow School's extensive cricket fields, the Philathletic Ground. According to the whiteboard on West Street the last matches played here were against Merchant Taylors' on 20th June, over ten weeks ago, because one thing that termly fees of £21,990 deliver is a very long summer break.
The centre of the village was a four-way junction on the Northolt Road, now a five-way maelstrom called Roxeth Corner. The only building a Victorian would remember is The Half Moon pub, a half-timbered beauty originally named after the shape of the village pond. Its place in history relates to Britain's first fatal car accident in 1899 which, as a plaqueelsewhere attests, took place below Harrow School during a descent of Grove Hill. The Half Moon was merely the site of the subsequent public enquiry, hearing how a rear wheel collapsed and two passengers were hurled from their seats, one dying instantly and the other from his injuries three days later. Perhaps unsurprisingly the pub is now an Indian Grill and Shisha Lounge called the Salt Bar, but if you still want a more traditional local try The White Horse a short walk up Middle Hill.
The road rising eastwards here is Roxeth Hill, this the route the 258 bus takes to climb from South Harrow to the upper heights of Harrow School. Full marks to the TfL employee who designated the bus stop halfway up with the letters RH. Roxeth Hill is lined by some of the finer buildings erected as the suburb expanded, from small-scale workers' cottages to Arts and Crafts semis, also rustic Christ Church built to cater to a growing population and set back from the main road. Roxeth Primary still educates pupils in an angular hall built for that very purpose in 1851, indeed it's Harrow's oldest surviving state school. I suspect the triple-bend footbridge shoehorned outside is pupil-related, self-evidently over-engineered when a lollipop lady would do, but the upper span does offer excellent views across the rooftops of Roxeth and the plains of Ruislip.
By contrast the main road south from Roxeth Corner is architecturally grim. Here former pubs and cottages have been replaced by dubious postwar and postmillennial flats, while the former petrol station has become a drab stacked hotel. The largest presence is Harrow Police Station (alas not Roxeth Police Station), an outdated flag-flying office block whose front desk remains at risk of closure. Arguably the big Waitrose is a big improvement on what was on the site before, namely a mighty tall gasholder with the letters 'NO' painted on the side, this because it was a key navigational landmark on the approach to Northolt airfield. The sole attractive building on this stretch is the clubhouse of the Royal British Legion's Harrow branch which was built in 1927 in Dutch style, its bar and function room even busier visually than the twiddly exterior.
Which brings us to the tube station, namely South Harrow, which was opened in 1903 by the District Railway and transferred to the Piccadilly line in 1932. Charles Holden designed the new station building which outside looks to be less of a stunner than usual, but inside has a whoppingly broad ticket hall and a pair of delightful recessed benches halfway up the stairs in case an ascent of 40 steps proves too much. To the north of the station the railway crosses Roxeth Marsh on a low viaduct, hard though it is today to imagine the adjacent avenues as mushy fields. But just down to the left is the source of the River Roxbourne, a minor brook so named because it rises outside Roxeth, and I've previously blogged that in depth so won't dive in again.
More relevant is what's been crammed under the arches immediately opposite the station. This is South Harrow Market, one of London's quirkier retail hideaways, essentially two long alleyways serving a warren of tiny bazaars. Most serve up food, so you may need to push past a delivery driver or two, while others will print you a banner, buy your gold or stab needles in your feet. The curse of AI graphics has struck several of the menus, hence I found the Nepalese and Gujarati pictures less convincing than the proper photos at Syria Food. Again it's a shame it's not called Roxeth Market, given it's right on the edge of the original village, but the nominative pull of the adjacent tube station has proved too strong.
Continue down the Northolt Road and barely any businesses mention the old place, with only Roxeth Library flying the flag. Even the Chiltern Railways station at the foot of the hill was only called 'South Harrow and Roxeth' for the first three years after opening, after which it was renamed Northolt Park thanks to the creation of a neighbouring housing estate, thus Roxeth's chances of long-term renown were scuppered. For a proper commemoration best see the information boards at the entrance to Roxeth Recreation Ground, these a step up from Harrow's normal design. The text confirms that the name "Hroecs Seath" was first mentioned in monastic documents in 845AD, even if nobody's 100% sure what Hroecs Seath meant, also that several trees in the park are leftovers from ancient field boundaries. You have alas missed this year's Roxeth Show, the revival of a 1970s tradition, because that was in July.
Across the railway line from the rec is South Hill Drive, a lengthy avenue whose streetsign has the unusual combination of a 'No Through Road' symbol and underneath "Except by Toll Road". Follow along and all looks normal at first until suddenly the road forks at two white gates, both closed to vehicles unless you have the correct gizmo to open them. The low road enters land owned by the South Hill Estate while the high road enters the Mount Park Estate, another private residential enclave. Both declare that there is NO THOROUGHFARE FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC but fail to clarify whether pedestrians are included so I strode through a side gate, greeted a resident walking down the hill with a Waitrose bag and chanced my arm.
It feels more Surrey than Middlesex, a sylvan climb where villas and minor mansions still feel the need to hide behind high fences and hedges despite supposedly being private anyway. Some have odd names like The Hut (which definitely isn't) or The Site, while others go for supreme Metro-land bland and call themselves Northmount, Southview, Hillcrest or The Oaks. A dozen have been here since the 19th century, a few are totally-out of character modern flats, and I have no idea how residents successfully held suburbia at bay but it's an extraordinary and privileged residential backwater nonetheless. I exited unscathed through a gate near the top of Sudbury Hill, still historically in ye olde Roxeth, another patch of secret London unlocked.
Sat 1: I have never previously tried to get ten days' blogposts prepared in advance whilst also writing posts for current publication. Wish me luck finishing the last few by Thursday. Sun 2: My favourite London meteorological data resource, NW3 Weather, has finally revamped to a modern mobile-friendly template, maybe 10 years later than it should have done. Naturally I hate the new format because nothing fits on a laptop screen any more, so I'm delighted the old version remains if you know where to look. Mon 3: I've been playing Threes on my phone for 12 years, that's over 22,000 games, and today I finally got my first 3072 tile. My high score more than doubled to 185,148 as a result. Just one more tile to get (maybe never). Tue 4: Nipped into Stanfords to buy a road map of the Basque Country (Michelin 144). It cost just £6.99 (and will prove incredibly useful because a satnav can't solve everything).
Wed 5: A squirrel turned up on my balcony attracted by a tub of water in a drought. We engaged in a lengthy staring match, then he came right up to the French windows and I tempted him away with an acorn (because I keep a stash too). Much nibbling ensued. Thu 6: I realised last week that my EHIC health insurance card had expired so sent off for a new GHIC, the post-Brexit equivalent, not thinking it'd arrive in time. It arrived the day before the holiday, hell yes.
holiday unblogged Fri 7: When we boarded the plane at Gatwick an important man was sitting in my seat so the stewardess relocated the three of us across the aisle. I may never sit in seat 1A again. Sat 8: The house where we're staying is firmly shuttered to keep out the heat, thus always dark inside. It's not usually 37°C here but apparently full-on shuttering is normal midsummer behaviour. Sun 9: I note that tattoos aren't generally a thing in the Basque Country, because if they were in this weather I'd have had an eyeful by now. Mon 10: Other cities' transport networks are often baffling and allow you to make a complete mess of things. I thought I'd done really well at the Txik Txak terminal in Biarritz, successfully buying a group ticket just before the bus departed. However when I showed it to the driver he gestured me off the bus with a Gallic shrug, this because I'd merely shown him my receipt and the ticket was still in the tray. Thankfully he waited while I ran back to collect it.
Tue 11: Portugalete metro station in Bilbao is the furthest west I've been this year. I thought it was a lot further west, but on checking it's merely due south of Lyme Regis. Wed 12: I was expecting total eclipse day to be a manic panic checking weather forecasts, traffic news and contour maps. Instead the forecast was so perfect that I relaxed all afternoon watching Netflix with the shutters down, then sauntered over to a bar safe in the knowledge that a full solar bite would be unobscured from the precise spot I'd chosen to holiday in. Still can't believe my luck. Thu 13: Things we saw on TV: several gossipy studio-based shows with half a dozen manicured hosts, very very long ad breaks, Basque TV channels promoting local culture (watch live here), a 2 hour-edition of First Dates (Spanish version), various potboiler dramas, Doc Martin dubbed. Fri 14: Since 2000 all Spanish numberplates have comprised four digits followed by three consonants, e.g. 9183 LZG. Registrations have been issued sequentially, first 9999 plates ending BBB, then BBC, then BBD, etc. We're currently up to the N's. The earliest number plate I saw was 3123 BDZ on a motorbike and the latest was 2844 NRW on a new white van. Sat 15: We nearly went to Biarritz today but thankfully checked for local events and discovered it was the day of the big Assumption fireworks so traffic would have been monstrous from mid-afternoon and much of the beachfront would have been sealed off. Monday was much quieter (and much better weather).
Sun 16: As soon as I got home from the airport I made myself beans on toast and had a proper cup of tea. I do miss the cheesy ham pintxos though. Mon 17: Having successfully taken my laptop to Spain and back, today it awoke with a blue screen of death I'd never seen before, demanding a 32-character BitLocker code. Eek. I didn't have a 32-character code, nor did any of my verification attempts uncover one. Eventually I solved the problem by clicking on 'Skip this drive'... and haven't dared turn off my laptop since. Tue 18: Just before 11pm my niece gave birth to her first child, instantly making my brother a grandfather. I merely became a great uncle which doesn't feel anywhere near as scarily generational. Wed 19: The baby's name was revealed, and as expected yes it has been used for a Disney character. Thu 20: I don't think I've ever seen grass in London looking so dry. This is Wanstead Green looking more like a threadbare carpet of straw.
Fri 21: I loved re-watching the Housemartins documentary London 0 Hull 4, as seen on BBC2's Paul Heaton Night, because the first time I saw it in 1987 I was living half a mile round the corner from 70 Grafton Street where the band formed. Sat 22: The spout of my kettle has furred up so I decided to give the gauze a scrub. I did this very gently but still managed to break the gauze, hence the kettle now pours much more smoothly but also lets chunks of limescale through, dammit. Sun 23: The westbound waiting room at New Malden station now has a sign on the door saying 'Calming space' alongside an autism infinity symbol. SWR's Calming Spaces "are waiting rooms which incorporate calming features to create a more inclusive space for customers who are neurodiverse or may have non-visible disabilities." It's a lovely idea, should you be planning on travelling to Surbiton rather than Waterloo, but only brief respite before the utter hubbub of a train carriage. Mon 24: Today is 40 days after St Swithin's Day, which was dry. I've done my usual check since and can confirm that 33 of the subsequent days were dry, which is the saint's best prediction since 1989 and 1990 (which were also both 33☀️ 7🌧️). It would have been 35 if only I hadn't gone to Norfolk and Romford and been hit by rogue showers.
Tue 25: The long-standing motor vehicle service centre at 169-173 Bow Road has closed and is up for sale. This is because ATS Euromaster Ltd is winding down its UK operations. A sign attached to the gate says "Closed Until Tomorrow", and somebody really should cross out the last two words. The site has a guide price of £1,750,000 and I expect it to be sold for housing. You could easily cram several dozen flats onto this brownfield quarter-acre, and in five years' time I bet somebody has. Wed 26: I did not open the bottle of champagne given to me when I moved into my flat 25 years ago, a possible option having evaporated, so the wait for a suitable moment continues. Thu 27: You may remember that last year, rather perversely, I set foot in every London borough at least 40 times. This year I've reached the same total but in August, so who knows how high I can get it by New Year's Eve. Fri 28: Today my Dad and I got to meet (and hold) the newest member of our family. He's so small, also his nails are surprisingly long, also he wriggles a lot, also I'd like to think that was a smile, also thanks for filling your nappy five minutes before we arrived, also by the time he's my age there still won't have been a total solar eclipse in the UK. Sat 29: Christmas puddings, festive bakewells and panettone are back on the shelves in Tesco, and obviously I bought six mince pies to celebrate.
Sun 30: Radio 4 Extra repeated an episode of The Grumbleweeds from 1986 (blimey, as late as that?), and I can't believe we found it funny and listened every week. Mon 31: On Instagram I watched reels of people having a great bank holiday abroad, at festivals, up mountains, at restaurants, on rivers, at airports, at weddings etc and all I did was walk across Selsdon Woods and Southwark Bridge. Must try harder.
25 things we learnt from TfL FoI requests in August 2026
1) In the first half of 2026 TfL earned £2,374,283 from 90,511 Penalty Charge Notices for bus lane infringements. 2) The TfL bus fleet comprises 6528 double deckers and 2454 single deckers, of which
2357 are diesel, 2937 electric, 3668 hybrid and 20 hydrogen. 3) The estimated cost of replacing the platform canopies at Barons Court station is £10.3m. 4) The three junctions responsible for the greatest number of yellow box penalty charge notices are i) West Hill/Wandsworth Fire Station SW18, ii) Homerton High St/Homerton Fire Station E9, iii) Vauxhall Bridge Road/Rampayne Street SW1. 5) So far this year, 12% of bus damage incidents have involved a Wrightbus Eclipse Gemini 3, 10% have involved an ADL Enviro 400H MMC and 9% have involved a Wrightbus NRM.
6) With regard to automatic numberplate recognition, TfL operate 4243 enforcement cameras and 181 monitoring cameras. 7) Since fares restarted on bus routes through the Silvertown and Blackwall Tunnel, passenger numbers on route 108 are down 15% compared to the same time period in 2025. On route SL4 numbers are up 4% and on route 129 up 0.5%. 8) Last year in the borough of Greenwich, while crossing the road, 9 pedestrians were seriously injured on a pedestrian crossing, 6 within 50m of a pedestrian crossing and 10 elsewhere. 9) Between February and July on the Northern line, 9% of timetabled trains failed to serve the Battersea extension. 10) The four criteria used to assess tube seats following a deep clean are i) Dust or debris in crevices ii) Dust or debris on seats iii) Grime or dust on panels iv) Gum residue. The required pass mark is 80%.
11) Last year on the Underground there were 5149 reported incidents of passengers possessing an open container of alcohol but only 203 of passengers consuming alcohol. 12) Employee headcount at the eight operational control centres for the tube is 8 for the Waterloo & City, 48 for the Bakerloo, 50 for the Victoria, 65 for the Central, 69 for the Piccadilly, 76 for the Northern, 92 for the Jubilee and 247 for the combined Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan. 13) The new signage on the bus lane on Westminster Bridge Road incorrectly omitted motorcycles from the list of permitted vehicles so has been removed pending replacement. 14) In the last year the drivers of 63 TfL maintenance vans have been caught exceeding a 20mph speed limit. 15) Since the start of last year the tube line with the greatest number of reported robberies was the Central line, while theft of public property was most prevalent on the Piccadilly line. The Northern line was top for violence, sexual offences and public disorder.
16) If you'd like a copy of all the in-carriage line diagrams used on the tube, DLR and trams, here's a zip folder. 17) TfL's total expenditure on taxi services during the 2025/26 financial year was £6,968,396. 18) In the last financial year 3,335,464 passengers on 190,439 buses were checked by revenue staff, leading to 17,947 penalty fares being issued and 2892 successful prosecutions. 19) Over the last three months 25% of Elizabeth line services at Acton Main Line departed at least three minutes late. 20) In the week starting 29th June a bus on route 70 knocked a motorcyclist off his bike in South Kensington and another bus on route 70 crashed into a house in Notting Hill. The same driver was not responsible for both incidents.
21) There are no current plans to introduce any new weekend-only Night Services on the tube, Overground or buses. 22) When planning for a possible Rotherhithe to Canary Wharf footbridge, a report estimated that a 15m high bridge would require opening 1-4 times an hour in the navigational peak, whereas a 20m bridge would have 95% availability. 23) 43,641 London addresses are registered to two active 60+ Oyster photocards, 864 hold three and 116 hold more than three. 24) In the last twelve months the vehicle with the highest number of ULEZ Penalty Charge Notices is a Ford Focus Titanium X TDCi with 361 fines. The vehicle with the highest number of Congestion Charge PCNs has a diplomatic plate (290 fines). 25) If you ask TfL to use their office printer to print out every tube map ever produced in colour on A3 paper, along with guidance on how to fold them, they will refuse.
I missed reporting on several transport stories while I was away so here's a brief catch-up.
🚦 This Saturday the gyratory at St Paul's is being tweaked. The southern end of King Edward Street is being pedestrianised (to create Greyfriars Square) so traffic will have to go a different way and so will local buses. Precisely where the 4, 8, 25, 56, 76 and 133 stop will be altering, and route 100 has already been extended to St Bart's. TfL have produced a ridiculously complicated map to try to explain things (my head exploded), so if you need to catch a bus the City of London's vastly oversimplified version should be clearer.
🚡 It amazes me that every time I do one of these round-ups there's a new thing at the cablecar but there always is. This time it's an interactive audio guide you can listen to on the way across with different stories in either direction. It's narrated by Engi-Bear, the cablecar's lumpen mascot, and produced by an Italian software team called POPGuide. You need to bring your own headphones (and indeed your own phone). The unusual thing is that it costs £1, just £1, when they could have given it away for free or tried to make more money out of it. Upselling has never been so flaccid.
🚇 TfL have added another weekday closure of most of the Piccadilly line to their already excessive roster of downtime, specifically Wednesday 28th - Friday 30th October (immediately before a full line closure at the weekend). Whatever is wrong with the new trains must be proving intractable, given it'll be at least next spring before any member of the public gets on board, fingers crossed.
🚌 London's next dead bus is the 349 which is being withdrawn on Saturday. Expect bloggage. On the same day the latest Superloop route is being introduced, the SL12 from Gants Hill to Rainham. The good news that it'll be free to use for the first week, should you happen to live in the area. TfL have produced a route diagram and a long list of stops in both directions, but not a map because that would be too useful. I cannot overemphasise enough how remote the Rainham terminus is, so expect bloggage there too.
📽️ In mid-August TfL published their Advertising Annual Report, a glossy 49 page compilation of all the showiest campaigns of the last year. It reads like a bunch of talented professionals congratulating themselves on a job well done, but unfortunately that job is to make their advertising more and more difficult to miss. Key phrases include "empowering brands to unlock creativity and turn heads" and "innovation remains central to our shared focus". The scariest project is a "plan to deliver world-first, ten-metre-long digital corridor wraps in selected Elizabeth line stations", i.e. huge moving screens you can't take your eyes off. It's so controversial they've made a full-scale mock-up at UCL "to evaluate how digital corridor wraps might impact the experience of customers who are neurodivergent or disabled". See photo.
They hope the research will show any potential impacts can be mitigated, but I hope someone will grow a conscience and halt the introduction of these massive digital intrusions. Advertising targets shouldn't be fixated on increasing distraction, forever designing formats it's more and more impossible to take our eyes off.
📱 The report also suggests you could be seeing a lot more adverts on TfL Go in future. At present the app generates 76 million page views a month but only made £5,000 in revenue last year, thus "TfL Go represents a significant long-term growth opportunity".
🚌 If you enjoy those free heritage bus days when the London Bus Museum floods a historic route with vintage vehicles, the list of planned events has extended. Route 106:3rd October 2026. Route 6: 20th March 2027. Route 107: 13th June 2027. Route 85: 2nd October 2027.
This blog loves a boundary and the border between Spain and France is one of the more significant. It's 425 miles long, was finally settled in 1856 and mostly follows the drainage divide of the Pyrenees. At its western end it divides the towns of Irun (Spain) and Hendaye (France), or more precisely the Spanish town of Hondarribia and the French suburb of Zokuburu. If you stand in Hondarribia's mainsquare and look down the hill you can see where the border ends at the mouth of the river Bidasoa. Spain's on the left, France on the right.
There are many ways to cross the border here.
By road
European route E5 crosses the border four miles upstream at the Zubi Nazioartekoa. On the Spanish side the autoroute is designated AP-8, then morphs into the A63 to Bordeaux in the middle of the bridge. The French side immediately welcomes drivers with a toll booth, or if viewed the other way charges drivers for leaving the country. There are no passport checks or customs, nor at the two non-motorway bridges between the two sides. We returned via the more minor Santiago Bridge, freely crossing thanks to EU accords which have made the former queues obsolete. That said we did pass French gendarmes setting up beside the road ready to spot-check inbound traffic, so maybe be careful what you choose to take in or out.
By rail
A 120m-long railway bridge links Spanish railways to France, which is awkward because the countries have very different gauges. There are thus a heck of a lot of marshalling yards on either side to aid transfer of rolling stock. A parallel bridge carries the Euskotren metro train from San Sebastián but this travels only 400m into France before terminating at Hendaye station. Long distance rail travellers need to transfer to the Euskotren to make their connection, or else lug their luggage for a mile and a half via the Santiago Bridge. We had hoped to visit Biarritz by train but the connecting faff (and oddly infrequent services on the French side) made it far better to drive instead. [The Man in Seat 61]
By boat
The lowest crossing of the border is theferry that's been shuttling between Hondarribia and Hendaye since 1993. The service crosses Txingudi Bay in seven minutes flat for the ferry reasonable fare of €2.50. The jetty was only a ten minute walk from where I took today's first photo so I was sorely tempted to make a pointless border crossing just for the sake of it. My travelling companions instead prioritised lunch so we settled at Mika Jatetxea for pintxos and pork rib with orange and cheddar sauce and I missed my chance. Also best not risk a trip to a foreign country when your plane leaves in three hours, so Hondarribia's lovely walledtown was a far safer bet.
By air
For reasons of flatness San Sebastián's airport is 10 miles east of the city in Hondarribia, built on reclaimed land in the Bidasoa estuary. For reasons of space the runway is short so gets only a handful of flights daily, all in small planes including a few weekly returns to London City Airport. For reasons of geography the runway is incredibly close to the mid-stream national border, the centre of the runway barely 100m away, indeed only a few seconds after take-off you've already entered French airspace. If you remember the very first photo I showed you at the start of my holiday travelogue, taken from the window of my departing plane, that had Spain in the foreground, France in the background and the Santiago Bridge inbetween. One holiday, two countries, and somehow it's taken me longer to write up than I spent there.
If you've driven all the way to France you might as well stop somewhere else on the way back.
✉ A postcard from Saint-Jean-de-Luz
On my summer holidays we went to Saint-Jean-de-Luz which is in France but only just. It is six miles from Spain on the coast and it has a big bay and ice creams. It is not a fun place to park but we managed.
The place to go is thebeach, it is long and very sandy. A lot of people were playing beach volleyball because there is a lot of space. The sun was starting to set over the fort and lighthouse at the far end of the bay and it was very pretty. But nobody was in the sea because the purple flag was flying. The purple flag means JELLYFISH! or in this case Portuguese men o' war because they had invaded. I have never seen a purple flag before it is serious, if one stings you in precisely the wrong place you could die. The lifeguards sounded a big horn when they saw someone wading in. It must be gutting if you come here for a week's holiday and a blue bag of venom stops you going in the water.
The biggest building on the promenade is the casino, there is always a casino although this one closed a while back. It has a boardwalk and a pergola and little shops. We bought ice creams from a Glaces Lopez van on the promenade, they've been going since 1924. I had citron in a cornet, it was yummy and only €1.70 which is a total bargain. We also bought Gâteaux Basques from Maison Adam in the high street but only the small ones, I liked the custard filling best. Maison Adam are most famous for their macarons, they once made them for the wedding of Louis XIV and Marie Theresa of Spain which took place here in Saint-Jean-de-Luz in 1660. Now that's an origin story!
The highstreet is proper characterful, all narrow with brightly-painted shutters. It's also a bit designer in places, such is the tourist clientele, although if you buy surf gear you have to go out of town to use it because the bay doesn't get big waves. At the lower end are a lot of outdoor bar tables, London has nothing on this, also the marina where the nice boats are. The smart dockfront museum is the House of the Infanta, this because Marie Theresa spent the night before her wedding here (Maison Louis XIV is just round the corner). The harbour is also the mouth of the Nivelle but it is not a famous river.
On the way back to the car we passed the public fronton, which is the place where they play pelote. I first learned about pelote in my Tricolore textbook and now here I was watching two Basque lads hurling a ball really hard against a wall using their long curved xistera. Then they had to stop playing because a truck arrived with tree trunks for tonight's Basque Strengthevent, a display of athletic sawing, bale lifting, sack racing and tug of war. We didn't have time to stay but what with the pelote, games and gâteaux we had learned that Saint-Jean-de-Luz is just as Basque as towns the other side of the Spanish border. [10 photos]
Sometimes you just want to go for a nice walk, nothing too taxing, plenty of variety, seaside chic, trois plages, lifeguard-assisted, Belle Époque architecture, multiple refreshment opportunities, rocky promontories, Atlantic rollers, walking in the steps of Napoleon, occasional lizards, stripy parasols, warmer than home, a bit of a stroll, won't take long. So here's une belle promenade along the coast of southwest France from Biarritz's old lighthouse to the Virgin's rock, nowhere near enough to make a day of it but a nice walk all the same. [30 photos]
Biarritz is an iconic seasideresort 20 miles round the Bay of Biscay from the Spanish border, still technically in the Basque country if less conspicuously. It grew in popularity during the 19th century, first as somewhere to bathe in the waters and then as somewhere to be seen, attracting notable summer residents including kings and emperors. Officially it's a city but in reality a coastal suburb of more-sprawling Bayonne, part of the departement of Pyrénées-Atlantiques. For today's perambulation we'll be hugging the shore from one headland to the next, technically doable in half an hour but far better to take your time. If you want to follow along here's a map, or else you can let my Flickr album lead you through by choosing the 'slideshow' icon and imagining you were there.
The walk starts by the lighthouse atop Pointe Saint-Martin, a sandstone headland at the northern end of the bay. This is the dividing line between the rocky Basque coast and the much flatter sandy beaches of the Landes region which can be seen stretching off into the far distance, but only if you think to walk round the back of the toilets. The more obvious view is southacross the town and the various rocks which dot the bay, sone of which are actually arches, just not from this angle.
The screw propeller in pride of place in the upper gardens belongs to the Franz Hals, a trawler bound for scrap in 1996 which slipped its moorings and ran aground on the beach below. Local hoteliers feared they were in for a direct hit. The lower gardens cling to the rockface and look extensively scenic but alas are all fenced off, either temporarily for maintenance or more likely permanently for safety. You could spend €5 and climb the lighthouse before departing but the views are probably good enough from the clifftop, also a Nice Walk shouldn't kick off with 248 unnecessary steps.
A short walk at street level is required before the first beach access, this via a steep set of steps called Descente de l'Océan. A big plus in strolling north to south is that this is downhill but be warned, a reverse price will need to be paid at the end of the walk. The first beach is Plage de Miramar, a quieter strand than the town's main drag but still with a narrow stretch watched over by red and yellow coastguards. There's that arch I promised you, an offshore sandstone hump called Roche Ronde which from the right angle resembles a heeled shoe. You are however a century too late to spot Edward VII, who used come to Biarritz every year so he could spend a month with his mistress rather than his wife.
Edward stayed just up top in the enormous Hôtel du Palais, a 5* luxury pile in extensive private grounds. It was originally built by Napoleon III in 1855 as a summer villa for his new wife, the Empress Eugénie, so she didn't too feel homesick for her native Spain. Beyond the protruding hotel is the Grande Plage, the most prestigious of the beaches, probably because it's the easiest to reach. It has perfect sand, a broader patch overseen by lifeguards and a very chic row of striped beach parasols in primary colours. Towel density increases the further south you go, or at least it did in mid-August, as did the number of beachgoers taking a paddle or dip.
If you fancy heading up into the main town this is best place to do it. Firstly it's immediately above and secondly the slope here is the gentlest, which you may appreciate later. The prime interstitial spot is taken by the town's casino, a fin de siècle gambling fortress which these days allows anyone inside to play its slots. Keep climbing to reach the Hôtel de Ville, the tourist information palace and all the smart shops you'd expect to find where sophisticated tourists gather. It's also the best place to spot the tram-buses and teensy navettes operated by Txik Txak, the local transport operator (whose very-Basque name represents the noise made by a double bounce in the game of pelota).
We stopped for an hour at a cafe beneath the casino because sometimes it helps to immerse yourself in the landscape, not just walk through it. I had croque monsieur and a bottle of Orangina to reflect the fact we were briefly in a different country, and watched every example of smart beachwear pass by on the promenade.
The southern end of the bay is rockier, the first of a dozen offshore lumps being the Roche des Enfants (the one children shouldn't swim past). The boulevard now climbs to duck below more hotels and a Gothic church, the occasional footbridge providing access to a separate rocky viewpoint. The small cove here was once used by the town's fishermen to unload sardines, the jetties more recently appropriated by small white motorboats. To explore properly would require negotiating a lot of stone steps and minor scenic deviations, but if you're keeping it short head through the tunnel beneath the Aquarium and give the headland benches a miss.
The Musée de la Mer started out as an oceanography museum, thus a bit dry, before diversifying into sea creatures in the 1960s. More recently they've introduced sharks and then a full-on aquarium extension, so the Art Deco frontage now hides a touristattraction more worthy of €17 admission. Instead our headland-to-headland walk concludes at an iron walkway which crosses potentially stormy waters to another offshore islet. This is the Rocher de la Vierge, or Virgin's Rock, so called because a bronze statue of Mary was plonked on top in 1865. The seagull on her head I believe was temporary.
What everyone in Biarritz likes to do is walk out to the rock and back, especially atsunset, passing through a tiny tunnel to gather in the larger space at the far end. Use of the coin-op telescopes is optional. The whole thing has a feel of fairyland about it, the chunky sandstone seemingly artificial as if Bournemouth's municipal engineers had a hand in it. The very tip of the rock might be too crowded to allow you to sit down, but do take the opportunity to look back onto the shore from mid-sea. The chateau-like house across the bay is called Villa Belza and is almost as photographed as the Virgin, but although it looks like you should be able to go inside it's actually a private residence.
The next beach round is a U-shaped cove formerly used by the town's whaling fleet, now a pristine tongue of sand. It's Plage du Port Vieux and its tiny strand is crammed with sunbathers packed into rows facing the water, exactly as you'd imagine a beach in Biarritz should be. A lido-like terrace curves round to provide important facilities, almost forming a recreational amphitheatre, and all accessed via the slipway they once used to pull the boats up. Meanwhile adolescent exhibitionists queue to dive acrobatically off the long jetty below the Eden Cafe, before clambering out and going round again. And we're done.
To return to the main town best take the Rue du Port-Vieux direct. We continued round the headland past Villa Belza to the next bay in the hope of seeing it thronged with boarders, this being where the sport of surfing first came to France in 1956. Unfortunately it was high tide when access is banned due to lack of sand, so we had to continue unsatisfied and find a way back up the cliff. The zigzag path proved knackering and although we saw lots of charming lizards during the ascent my companions were barely talking to me by the time we reached the top. Never push a Nice Walk too far, even if you're in Biarritz and it's not just nice, it's très très beau.
Since 1999 the London Café in Vitoria-Gasteiz has attracted punters with its London-themed decor, including a red bus behind the bar, a sign pointing to Earl's Court Station and the door of a red telephone kiosk a stuck to the wall. The food offering is more standard and the front pump merely serves Guinness at non-London prices, but there's clearly been an attempt to make Britons feel vaguely at home. BestMate'sOtherHalf remembers coming to gigs here when the bands in the back room were all ska and punk, these Basque favourites rather than a nod to London in the late 70s, but these days the cafe's more somewhere to come for beer and a burger in a wood-panelled room with a faux-London vibe.
While we were ordering at the bar I became intrigued by a sign pointing towards the toilets which said SUBWAY, a slight mis-step. So I followed it to the back room and there on the wall I found a giant tube map mural stretching up into north London. Oh that's good, I thought.
But the more I looked the more intrigued I became. The layout looked suitably reminiscent of the pre-Crossrail era but some of the stations didn't quite match reality. All those you'd expect to see were there but also at least ten extras, also lines that aren't part of the existing network, but all perfectly woven into the diagram so as to look entirely normal to the unfamiliar eye.
A check against my collection of tube maps, specifically the spread of step-free blobs and daggers, suggests this is fundamentally the 2012 tube map but with some subsequent modifications. I couldn't quite get the perfect photo because there was a man sat eating his lunch in the sweet spot, sorry, so I had to chop Alexandra Palace off the top. But you might enjoy looking as much as I did to see if you can spot the peculiarities within because I've never quite seen a tube map like it. A slightly bigger version of my photo is here and I've put the full-sized version on Flickr.
We ordered kalimotxos instead of a pint of Guinness and pintxos rather than a bag of pork scratchings, but it's reassuring to know that tube geeks are alive and well even in places as far flung as the Basque Country, and the London Café has the map to prove it.
🥓🫒🦐 The quintessential item of Basque cuisine is the pintxo (pronounced pincho, the 'tx' representing a 'ch' sound). A pintxo is a small savoury snack, bigger than bite-sized and generally breadier than tapas. They're displayed on the counter in bars to be eaten alongside a drink, sometimes a choice of umpteen and sometimes just the specialities of the house. Think cheesy ham or spiked olives with tomato or anchovies with truffle or sliced tortilla or stacked jamón chunks or cod croquettes or battered chorizo or stuffed mussel or lamb sweetbread or squirts of foie, even scooped-out sea urchin with a creamy mix of squid and mushroom, lightly grilled. There are no set combinations so you either have to ask exactly what they are or just dive in and take pot luck, a gamble you're very likely to win. It takes two or three to satisfy an appetite, alternatively you can bar hop and cherrypick from each, making this the most sociable of feasts. Prices are extremely reasonable too, maybe 2.40€ for something any London cafe would screw you over for, were they even making something delicious on the premises in the first place.
We dined on pintxos every day, so engrained are they in the culture, sometimes from a homely corner cafe and sometimes from a specialist outfit with a regional reputation. In Vitoria the top venues include Sagartoki, El Toloño and perretxiCo, all offering creations with extra pizazz rather than just a dollop of seafood squirted on half a roll. The busiest place we tried was Bar Sport in San Sebastián where the queue at the bar was four deep even at the end of the lunchtime rush, such is their reputation. A large team worked a rustic production line to process the orders, to carry the plates and (out of sight) to assemble and cook, eventually delivering us half a crab with cheesy sludge in, the aforementioned sea urchin and a rather safer mushroom croquette.
Not only are there dozens of pintxo bars in town centres but most have the same layout, a long (long) bar down one side and a row of small tables on the other, with barely room to walk between. One side offers choice, the other somewhere to perch. In the suburbs land is cheaper so there's often more space, also many tables outside where the community gathers. These bars are generally open from dawn until well after dusk, evolving through the day from breakfast coffee to lunchtime snack to evening beers... like a coffee shop, cafe and pub rolled into one. We started all our mornings at the Viena Café where a selection of home-made pintxos sat under a cloche, always served with a smile, and I very much regret that the double decker tuna and cheesy-ham sandwich never made a reappearance.
🐙 I wasn't sure how I'd get on with my somewhat restricted palate but thankfully ham was everywhere, also cod and cheese but mainly ham, also I successfully dodged olives and everything squidlike, also whenever chicken came it was invariably a thin dry fillet, also on Day 1 I survived a starter of black pudding which turned out to be enormous, also Basque cheesecake is considerably tastier when it's genuinely Basque and I very much approve.
🥬 Vegetables are generally not a thing, potatoes excepted. The very idea of a side of something green is anathema in a cuisine more heavily based on meat, fish and sometimes a sauce, but often not.
🍔 Fast food is generally banished from city centres. For example Vitoria-Gasteiz (population 250,000) has only four McDonalds and five Burger Kings, all in the outer suburbs beyond the ring road.
🕑 Mealtimes are later than Britons might expect, the evening meal more of a late evening event. As for lunch we generally took this in the gap between 2pm and 4pm when a lot of shops and museums are closed, this also the perfect opportunity to sit down in the shade in the hottest part of the day. Checking the times on five of our restaurant receipts: 14:53, 15:15, 15:58, 16:32 and 16:45.
🍷 Wine is dirt cheap, which is one of the perks of living in a country that makes it. Bottles are barely 3€ in the supermarket, also when you order from the set menu a bottle of red wine is generally included. My three course lunch by Bilbao's transporter bridge cost 14.50€ and although all I really wanted was a glass, that came with a full bottle as well. Nobody even blinks if you leave some. Dining out in London now feels even worse value ever before.
🥛 A popular drink to order in a Basque bar is a kalimotxo (pronounced calimocho). It's a mix of red wine and cola and could be considered the cheap and cheery northern equivalent of sangria. In hot weather it's very refreshing, hence I enjoyed several over the holiday. I also downed a few glasses of the local aniseedy liqueur patxaran, to widespread social approval.
🍵 I struggled to make a cup of tea, first because the family home where we were staying didn't have any teabags, then because they didn't have a kettle, and ultimately because the only cups suitable for hot liquids were tiny and coffee-sized. I ended up making myself two small cups every morning.
🍎 On the last night of the holiday we treated ourselves to a night out at a cider house (or sagardotegi), a true local gastronomic tradition. Basque cider is a non-sparkling brew fermented from local apples, most of which comes from the hills above San Sebastián. The season begins with great festivity in mid-January and lasts until April, with aficionados often taking the opportunity to sample cider (and food) from different houses. Things are quieter in August but we booked in advance at Petretegi in Astigarraga, one of the more famous orchards where production dates back exactly500 years to 1526.
The scale of things was evident by the fact they have a 420-seater restaurant, a rustic timbered affair backed by rows of huge cider barrels. They keep the food simple by serving up a very set menu: first salt cod omelette, then T-bone steak, then local cheese with quince jelly and walnuts. But it's the cider where the theatre is, served not from a bottle on the table but direct from the barrels round the back. Whenever you want a drink you wander off into the nether regions, initially gasping at the scale of the operation, and hunt around for the cellarkeeper with his finger on the tap.
The approved method is to fire the cider out of the barrel and for each drinker to catch it in their glass. The distance the liquid has to travel helps to aerate it, and also adds a great deal of fun to the evening. Ideally you hold your glass on the slant, then remove it when you have about an inch of liquid so that another drinker can swoop in from behind and catch the flow. Across the evening the chosen barrel regularly changes, so you might follow up a fruity blend from cask 18 with a drier sample from silo 46 in the backroom. And if you end up chatting to everyone else while waiting for a drink, that's all part of the experience.
The Basque word for this is txotx (which if you've been paying attention today you should know how to pronounce). In many cider houses you have to wait for a shout of "txotx" before heading to the barrel but at Petretegi you can wander in at any time, ensuring more self-control is needed. We finally stumbled out just before midnight, very much appled-up, having sensibly booked accommodation at the foot of the hill.
⚖️ I have put on three pounds since going to Spain and it's not shifting.
San Sebastián is the jewel of the Basque coast, a classy city sweeping around a perfect sandy bay bookended by two high hills. It has top gastronomy, a well-spread cultural offer and a promenade to preen yourself on. Sure there's a modern urban centre tucked behind but tourists focus on the coast and the old town, which as ever is a compact nugget of narrow streets in a medievally-strategic location. The Basque name of the city is widely used, but the world knows Donostia as the famously attractive resort of San Sebastián. Imagine how many more photographs I'd have taken had the sun come out. [40 photos]
For a prime view of the city head to Monte Igueldo, the 180m peak at the western end of the bay. It's such a good spot that a casino and amusement park were built up here in 1912, the funfair still present and attracting large crowds daily. Find a decent viewpoint (away from tall trees and selfie-snappers) and the entire curve of La Concha bay will be arrayed beneath you. On the far side is the castle-topped peak of Monte Urgull and mid-bay is Isla Santa Clara, a green hump which helps dampen the waves which reach the shore behind. The horseshoe panorama is stunning, a creation worthy of Magrathea, although we only saw thebeach either side of high tide so I'm not sure how low it extends.
The funfair isn't huge but retains several rides that were thrilling in 1912 including a carousel, a coaster and a water ride called Mysterious River. This invites you to board a boat for a brief circuit below the hotel walls, an entirely tame loop except that one side is adjacent to a sheer drop, thus its queue gets very long. Even longer is the line for Swiss Mountain, a rollercoaster mild enough not to require restraints, which intermittently takes riders on a scenic loop around the summit. Even loftier views can be had from the Lookout, a fairytale tower rising from the upper terrace which started life as a wooden lighthouse. Not everyone likes hiking up a hill for their entertainment so to maintain patronage the funfair is linked to the bay below by a woodenfunicular, also pre-WW1, although at 5.50€ return that's a bit steep.
The chief attraction at the foot of the cliffs, if you exclude the 'Wimbledon English Pub', is a trio of iron sculptures by the Basque artist Eduardo Chillida. These were placed at the very far end of the bay in 1977 and are an early triumph of site-specific art. One of the gnarled claws is attached to the cliff, another to an offshore rock and the third in the near distance beyond the end of the walkway. Apparently they represent past, present and future, though not necessarily in that order. More fun are the seven holes in the promenade through which air (or sometimes water) is forced by the action of the waves underneath. I watched as people stood on them thinking "this won't..." and then suddenly the updraught sent their hair flailing upwards generating the broadest of grins. The collective installation is called Peine del Viento, or The Comb of the Wind, and I imagine looks far more dramatic in stormy conditions.
It takes an hour to walk the curve of the bay, which I know because we walked it twice, once to the Comb and once back. Most people don't get that far as you can tell from the density of sunbathers at one end of the beach and the scarcity at the other. One section at Ondaretta is officially private with stripy blue and white parasols furthest from the waves, then hundreds of white chairs stacked in rows at the regulation distance apart. Various points of interest ensure a stroll along the promenade doesn't become a slog, including the brief tunnel beneath the grounds of the Miramar Palace (the summer home of one of Queen Victoria's great-grandchildren, the Infanta Marie Cristina). You'll also pass an abstract sculpture entitled 'Tribute to Fleming' (Alexander, not Ian), a luxury seawater spa called La Perla and a thin white clocktower that's actually a barometer. I apologise to my companions for stopping and photographing the view every few minutes but the ever-changing perspective was entirely beguiling.
The edge of the old town is heralded by tropical gardens and the ostentatious splendour of CityHall. No government money was wasted on its construction, this because it used to be a grand casino until a military coup in 1923 saw Spain outlaw gambling altogether. The divide between old and new is a boulevard called Boulevard, a broad stripe where street-food is sold, buses terminate and buskers in bunny costumes attempt to cadge money off tourists before they overheat. Narrowstreets bear off to the north across the neck of the headland, a wonky grid of bars, cafes, high-brand shopping, more bars and more cafes. Most of it's only 200 years old, the walled city having been burnt to the ground in 1813 when the French garrison was stormed by angry British and Portuguese troops. The only street still standing is called 31 de Agosto after the date of the pillaging, where these days the foreign invasion is mostly for pintxos and wine.
Down by the marina you can eye up some of the smart craft moored there, join a boat trip round the bay or see inside the Aquarium. For 16€ this tells the maritime history of the city (including a fair amount of whaling) before concluding with a walk past 30 fishy tanks. We didn't go in because we were prioritising exploring over experiences, also time was short after the two hour beach walk, also we skipped the Basque-focused San Telmo Museum for the same reasons. Instead we completed the beachfront walk around the foot of the eastern headland, which is Monte Urgull, and definitely didn't walk up to the summit because that would have been knackering. A succession of waves crashed into the outer rocks, a yacht bobbed out into the bay and a garish Mr Bean amusement ride slotted into the gap where a car park would have been were it not festival week.
It turned out we were visiting at the end of Semana Grande, the annual 'Great Week' when the city goes all cultural and fills its streets with entertainment. Chief amongst these are the fireworks that light up the sky each night at 10.45pm, part of an international competition peaking this year on the Feast of the Assumption with a particularly big offshore bash. We'd left by then so all we saw were the participants setting up in the tropical gardens, which were annoyingly fenced-off, and testing the sound system by playing Dire Straits exceptionally loud on big speakers. Maddeningly we also missed the daily parade of the Basque giants...
...despite being in the old town at precisely the right time, I guess just not in the right place on the processional circuit. San Sebastián's not really a city you can cover in five hours flat, and although we had a damned good try there is a limit to how much of a sparkling jewel you can admire in nowhere near enough time.
