We stopped only for lunch, and found it excellent, at the Hôtel de la Poste, with vin compris—which is not the case at the great hotels. En passant, let the writer say that the average "tourist" (not the genuine vagabond traveller) will not drink the vin de table, but prefers the same thing—at a supplementary price—for the pleasure of seeing the cork drawn before his eyes. The "grands hôtels" of the resorts recognize this and cater for the tourist accordingly.
We were bound for Fontarabia that night, just over the Spanish border. The Spanish know it as Feuntarabia, and the Basques as Ondarriba. For this reason one's pronunciation is likely to be understood, because no two persons pronounce it exactly alike, and the natives' comprehensions have been trained in a good school.
Fontarabia is gay, is ancient, and is very foreign to anything in France, even bordering upon the Spanish frontier. We left the automobile at Hendaye, not wishing to put up with the customs duties of eighteen francs a hundred kilos for the motor, and a thousand francs for the carrosserie, for the privilege of riding twenty kilometres out and back over a sandy, dreary road.
We dined and slept that night at a little Spanish hotel half built out over the sea, Concha by name, and left the Grand Hôtel de Palais Miramar to those who like grand hotels. We lingered a fortnight at Fontarabia, and did much that many tourists did not. One should see Fontarabia and find out its delights for oneself. There is a quaintness and unworldliness about its old streets and wharves, which is indescribable in print; there is a wonderfully impressive expanse of sea and sky on the Bay of Bidassoa, a couple of kilometres away, and all sorts and conditions of men may find an occupation here for any passing mood they may have.
We just missed the great fête of the eighth of September, when processions, and bull-fights, and all the movement of the sacred and profane rejoicings of the Latins yearly astonish the more phlegmatic northerner.
Another great fête is that of Vendredi-Saint (Good Friday). Either one or the other should be seen by all who may be in these parts at these times.
Near by, in the middle of the swift-flowing current of the Bidassoa, is the historically celebrated Ile des Faisans, on which the conferences were held between the French minister Mazarin and the Spanish Don Louis de Haro, which led to the famous Treaty of the Pyrenees, 1659, and the marriage of Louis XIV. with the daughter of Philip IV. The representative of each sovereign advanced from his own territory, by a temporary bridge, to this bit of neutral ground, which then reached nearly up to the present bridge. The piles which supported the cardinal's pavilion were visible not many years ago. The death of Velasquez, the painter, was caused by his exertions in superintending these constructions; duties more fitting to an upholsterer than a painter.
We finished our tour of the Pyrenees at Fontarabia, having followed along the shadow of these great frontier mountains their entire length; not wholly unknown ground, perhaps, but for the most part entirely unspoiled, and, as a touring-ground for the automobilist, without a peer.