At 1600 each sunny winter's day St Jean de Luz transforms from a beautiful and perfectly tranquil Basque outpost into a vibrant highway of sashaying socialites. The esplanade and high street are crammed with deliberately slow paced people promenading in the afternoon air and looking fabulous. Outside of their immediate circle of gossip everything passes unnoticed.I asked Maria why it took her almost an hour to prepare for this daily ritual, she replied: "one never know's who one'll meet". Sure enough by the time I had counted fifty paces we had shaken hands with several friendly locals.
We set forth to the shore to watch the sun setting across the Atlantic. Strewn across the beach and littering the sea were hundreds of basking sea-gulls all of them ready to claim any unwitting fish as 'mine'. As we walked home we appreciated how much warmer it is becoming. We also wondered whether any of our fellow pedestrians had noticed the sun falling behind the horizon so intent had they all appeared on the outward perfection of promenading.Basque of the day:- beauty :: edertasun
