{"id":4118,"date":"2023-05-28T20:14:13","date_gmt":"2023-05-28T20:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=4118"},"modified":"2025-12-24T22:28:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T22:28:03","slug":"4-rural-southwestern-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=4118","title":{"rendered":"4. RURAL SOUTH-WESTERN FRANCE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dax is a centre of thermal baths.\u00a0 They advertise cures for all sorts of rheumatic conditions, but they seem to be protracted affairs lasting weeks and there’s a lot of hot mud involved.\u00a0 While a swim in nice clear, warm water appeals, I’m going to skip the mucky mud.\u00a0 I think steroids are a lot less messy!<\/p>\n

We elected to stay out of town on a tiny rural property.\u00a0 \u00a0A quick email to check availability, followed by a conversation with an answerphone yielded no response.\u00a0 It transpired that the proprietors, (mother and daughter, Edith and Sylvie) spoke no English at all.\u00a0 We pitched up and found we were basically alone in their front garden.<\/p>\n

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We arrived for a couple of days, but stayed for a week.\u00a0 We found central Dax was basically a one street shopping zone featuring a Galleries Lafayette …<\/p>\n

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…\u00a0 with a magnificent stairwell complete with mirrors and huge framed murals.\u00a0 \u00a0I’m\u00a0 pretty sure the store sold lots of fancy clothes, but I didn’t really notice them!<\/p>\n

The street was also home to a couple of dress shops, a gelateria, a few restaurant\/cafe\/bars and, as they do in France, a cathedral.<\/p>\n

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All other retail outlets seemed to be occupied by opticians.\u00a0 There are dozens of them (and Dax is not alone in this).\u00a0 Where, at home, we have heaps of estate agents and charity shops, here they pander to eyeware fetishists!\u00a0 Glenda is seriously thinking about taking some French frames home with a view to talking Specsavers into fitting them with her lens.\u00a0 I say, good luck to that idea!<\/p>\n

We found some lovely restaurants nearby including the Louisiana Cafe.\u00a0 A joint run by a fan of deep south USA music and decor.\u00a0 Seemed rather out of place in rural Llandes\u00a0 – but popular enough that booking was essential – especially on music nights.\u00a0 We tried to get in to Bernie and Vincent’s place in Oeyreluy.\u00a0 Apparently, renowned for their posh cuisine.\u00a0 Sadly, they were too renowned.\u00a0 Full all week – and for the foreseeable future.\u00a0 You need your parents to make a booking for you before you are born to be certain of lunch here!\u00a0 But we did find other places for which it was worth putting on respectable clothes.\u00a0 Like Le P’tit Josse and the Aberge de Pas de Vent.<\/p>\n

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The local river is the Adour.\u00a0 A little known waterway (well little known by us, anyway) which rises in the Pyrenees and meets the sea near Bayonne, just north of Biarritz.\u00a0 Where we found it, there was an access road for “riverains” (local residents) which runs on the top of the flood prevention levee.\u00a0 It follows the river for miles – and so did we.\u00a0 Excellent walking.\u00a0 It would have been even better on bikes!<\/p>\n

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They just need to install more seats along the way!<\/p>\n

We were getting pretty relaxed by this time, but we should keep moving north towards Roscoff.\u00a0 So, what did we do?\u00a0 We headed East (and only very slightly north) to.Gondrin near the attractively named town of Condom.\u00a0 We had found a small rural (again) campsite that sounded too good to be true.\u00a0 Camping La Brouqu\u00e8re.<\/p>\n

To find out if it was indeed “too good to be true” or our “next disaster waiting to happen”, you will have to wait for the next thrilling episode!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dax is a centre of thermal baths.\u00a0 They advertise cures for all sorts of rheumatic conditions, but they seem to be protracted affairs lasting weeks and there’s a lot of hot mud involved.\u00a0 While a swim in nice clear, warm… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain-and-france"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4118"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4252,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4118\/revisions\/4252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}