I went to Basque. #7

   On Oct. 24th.

   The previous day, when I arrived at the hotel in Biarritz, I felt to come here by a tour bus was a wrong way. A very good hotel this was and a very narrow gate it had. Probably, it is Japanese only who use a tour bus to come here and who stay here for a day or two – very short. But, it is Japanese style tour. They had to have accepted it, whether they will or won’t.

   The day, first, we visited a factory of L’Atelier du chocolat in Bayonne. We tasted various kinds of chocolates. Unfortunately, we were unable to see a lot of real process of making chocolates except cleaning and an employee who was covered in chocolate powder. I bought chocolates for gifts. When I tasted pepper chocolate, I liked it and thought to get it for one of gifts, in fact, what I bought was pepper caramel, oops!!

   After this, we headed to Musée Basque by bus, and, walked to Cathédrale Sainte-Marie de Bayonne on the opposite bank of the river Nive. It is a magnificent, but somehow a patched building, the upper is made of limestone and the lower is made of sandstone.

   When I stayed in my room in the afternoon, a maid came for the turn down service. She perhaps had rung my doorbell a few times, but, I didn’t hear it clearly because of being at my bathroom. So, I did not answer her and the maid unlocked my door by her key in spite of my locking. Probably, she thought my room was empty as my door did not have the “Don’t disturb” card. When I saw her, I was so surprised because I didn’t know about the service. After I heard from my tour conductor this hotel had this as one of basic services. The previous day, we checked into the hotel late, so, the service had been done. This was my first stay at a 5 star hotel, therefore I had such a my first experience. (^_^;)

   We had the last meal of Basque at a small restaurant L’Atelier. I felt their dishes were a kind of nouvelle cuisine.

   The next day, we were going to leave Basque for Japan.

   To be continued. (^_~)