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France to Spain to France to Spain all in a weekend


By wrinklieshark
August 18 2016

Continuing our series of keep-the-board-alive-until-the-rugby-starts-again, wrinklieshark remembers a trip to the Basque region...

An exciting away trip that got a bit too exciting in parts.
 
When Sale played Biarritz in San Sebastian, we ( 2 of us and 2 friends) decided to make a long weekend of it, so we flew from Stansted to Biarritz and had 2 uneventful but very pleasant days walking and drinking our way round this lovely town, staying in a fairly modest but very good little hotel near the front.There was a huge following for 'B.O' (unfortunate initials) in the town, with banners in all the shop windows, and a loudspeaker van touring round all day, with its occupants handing out posters of the Biarritz team. So far, so good.
 
On the following day, we drove over the border to San Sebastian, and pushed the boat out financially to stay a couple of nights in a lovely hotel on the front, where we had magnificent views over the huge c-shaped bay. Although it was early March, the weather was warm and sunny, and after a day of sightseeing, we all walked the mile or so to the ground for the match which was in the evening. There were huge crowds, and we kept hearing what we thought was 'Sayull' but it turned out to be 'BayOh'.
We sat in the sun in the stands and they ran out of water, which makes a change from running out of beer. We lost, but it didn't seem to matter too much.
 
The restaurants and bars in San Sebastian, even though it is a very up-market sort of place, were much cheaper than over the border than in France, and we had some very good, (and sometimes interesting) meals. One of our friends is vegetarian, which doesn't translate into French, but is marginally less of a problem in Spain, and she chose a salad on one occasion, which sounded innocuous enough, although we didn't understand all the ingredients. It arrived and looked very acceptable to a 'veggie', with what appeared to be very fine pasta on top- like vermicelli. Having eaten most of it, she examined the rest more closely, and noticed that the 'pasta' came to a point at each end, and even more worryingly, each had an EYE!  Yes, baby eels....However, she survived.
 
On the Sunday morning after the match, we wakened to the sound of classical music, and opened the curtains to see hundreds of girls in ballet outfits getting ready to do exhibition exercises, using the promenade rail as a barre. They ranged in age from little tots of 5 or so to very elegant teenagers, and they were arranged in age groups along the whole length of the prom, with the little ones at one end, and the almost-grown-ups at the other. We walked along, enjoying the sunshine, music and spectacle, and were pleased to see that the boys had not been forgotten- they were all having organised football games on the beach. Still so far, so very good.
 
So, our long weekend almost at an end, we packed up and drove back to Biarritz, dropped the hire car off at the airport, and then it all went pear-shaped.
The French air traffic controllers, along with just about everyone else in France, were having one of their famous strikes, and the Departures board actually had no departures on it at all. We all besieged the poor Ryanair rep, who was doing her best to get everyone on flights to somewhere, not necessarily where they wanted to go.
The best she could offer us was a flight from Santander back to Stansted the next day, so having taken the hire car back, we tried to re-hire it, but when we found how much they were going to charge us to take it over the border, we turned our attention to the taxi rank, and found a lovely guy who although he had never driven to Santander before (surprising when you think how close it is- but it is another country!) offered to take the 4 of us, after phoning his wife to tell her he'd be late for supper.
 
We set off, having nowhere to stay, but our friend has always been a whizz with electronic gadgetry- I think it was a Blackberry then (shows how long ago it was) and she managed to contact her daughter who found us rooms in a hotel not far from Santander airport. Meanwhile, we reached the Spanish border, and were halted by armed guards who were obviously on the lookout for someone passing through, as after they let us through, they sent a 'stinger' across the road to halt whoever was behind us.
 
We carried on, but came to a sudden halt about a couple of miles further on, and assumed it was another road block.However we then saw a car on its roof about 6 cars ahead. Our driver got out and went to see what had happened, coming back with a Gallic shrug and 'Il est mort'. We assumed we would be there for hours, but the police and a recovery vehicle arrived immediately and with very little ceremony dragged the car (and its unfortunate occupant) to one side of the road, and we were all off again.
Of course the flights the following day were all delayed because the planes were all in the wrong places, but we did eventually get home, and agreed that we were glad that not all away trips were quite as eventful. We have managed 2 more trips to Biarritz since, both without incident!

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