Honderribia and Biarritz

We’ve completed our Wellington plans, except for La Rhune, which we planned to go up via the rack and pinion railway; but we’ve scarcely managed even to glimpse the top though the low clouds, so we’ve decided not to waste the money.

So we took the little ferry across the Bidassoa to Honderribbia on the Spanish side. A boat trip is always fun, and although we clearly should have waited for low tide and waded across up to our armpits, we chickened out.

Crossing the Bidassoa

Honderribbia has a small but absolutely charming old town, with walls and a thirteenth century castel, now a parador. There’s a cathedral and quite a number of sixteenth and seventeenth century palaces. So we had an enjoyable walk round there, and then a walk along the river front. It’s a festival, and so most people were done up in Basque white clothes with red neckerchiefs, at least, and some were quite elaborately done up with espadrilles and berets.

A town house in Honderribia

Honderribia

Back across the river we went to a restaurant near the marina for lunch, jolly good, and then had a long walk along the promenade and beach at Hendaye – it was one of the sunniest days we’ve had.

We flew back from Biarritz, so left early enough to have a look round.  Phil had been there on business and wasn’t that impressed, but I wanted to see it. There’s a lovely beach, well kept, but rather dodgy streaks in the sea. There are still some Belle Epoque houses, but mostly it’s vast apartment blocks. There are rocky stacks, which have been joined by bridges to make sort of piers, and there’s a lot of attraction in a walk out along the pier. The massive and very posh Palace Hotel  is a Napoleon III relic. So I’ve seen it and agree with Phil!

A rock "pier" at Biarritz

On the flight I had time to weigh up what our Wellington trips have taught us.  The major conclusion I’ve come to is that Napoleon was a very wicked man. He was a monstrous egoist, who seems to have believed that ordinary people existed to be of use to him. He was utterly indifferent to how many men, women and children died horribly because of his ambition. Did you know he actually reintroduced slavery?

Wellington’s genius was hard work, careful, detailed preparation, and a care for his men’s lives, if only because he knew they could not easily be replaced. When he made his prompt decisions, he could do so because he had already researched all the possibilities. He never betrayed any uncertainty or lack of confidence, and his men soon learned to have enormous confidence in him.

The other thing that impressed me was the difference in attitude to war – the French, who committed terrible atrocities in Portugal and Spain, were nevertheless obsessed with ideas of honour and glory, which were already outdated in Britain. The  British seem to have seen the war much more as a job that had to be done.