80 kilometers= 49 miles- Shem

We are trading off days to write and Shem needs to write this day but he's drooling in his sleep right now so I just want to comment that this was the best day ever!!! We both agree that if our trip falls to pieces or it was to end after this day it wouldn't even matter. That is how good it was. Two days have gone past and let me tell you one thing- it came with a small price. Our butts were SO sore we had to ride our bikes for the rest of our stay on one tush at a time. It wasn't a laughing matter.  To be continued by Shemmy...(¶ added by Andie)

I feel as though when people talk about France who have been whether there lived here or just visited always say, "The French countryside is beautiful!" and now I think I am inclined to really appreciate that remark. IT IS BEAUTIFUL! And I don't think I am exaggerating either.

En route.

I woke up fairly groggy this morning but I woke to Andrea coming in the room after a run saying that she found a place that would rent us 2 mountain bikes for 20€ a day. That being great news we went down stairs had some croissants and Sylvie, our amazing host (If you come to Biarritz stay with this great lady, she is sweet and her house is perfect for a traveling couple) gave us a ton of great suggestions on what to do with brochures and pamphlets. After sorting through all the things we decided to bike to La Rhune which is this village in the mountains in the Basque Country with a cool hike and an amazing view.

The top peak of this mountain was our destination.

We got the bikes very quickly from a sporting store called Takamaka (super random) but before we left the shop I asked the guy who rented the bikes to us in french how long it would take to get to La Rhune, he looked at me, kinda laughed and with a thick French accent in English said, "La Rhune? It is very far...2 hours, maybe."

Optimistic.

Not so much anymore.

I looked up the distance between both places, Biarritz to La Rhune on google maps and the distance was around 24 or 25 kilometers. So we decided to take this Blackberry Playbook (Blackberry's version of the ipad) that had the directions on it instead of a real map, bad idea. After about 15 minutes into the ride we took out the Playbook to look on the map. We decided to take all side streets cutting the time and distance in half, turns out that the Playbook did not want to turn on after charging all night. So with no directions we had a brochure that showed the two maind roads to get there and I felt confident that we could find it. What I hadn't planned on was this being a scenic route and that it almost doubled the distance turning 26 kilometers into 40 kilometers and change, one way!

Might just be wild horses...

Horse stables

Andie and I are not bikers by any means and the only exercise I've done since Hawaii has been surfing. That being said we were not prepared for this by any stretch. I kept remembering the guy at the bike shops little laugh but he said we could do it in two hours so we had that goal in mind, at least I did. I have to give some praise to my little wife though, I thought that because the new route went along the coast that it would be fairly flat, I was very wrong. The route was very hilly or hillacious...lots of hills, big hills too with tiny little roads and cars and motos speeding past with there being only inches between you and the car at times. Andie manned and handeled, I had to laugh a couple times when I would have made it to the top before her and be waiting I would look at her and her face would be strained as her tiny little legs willed this bike up the hill and then she would notice that I was watching smile and then wave like a little kid on a soccer field to the coach.

After the grueling first 44 kilometers we made it to the trail head and the hill to get there was a joke on the bike, by far the heaviest hill of the ride but I just kept thinking, "the ride down is going to be awesome!" At the trail head there were two of these pony looking horses just hanging out and we figured that they belonged to someone. Come to find out they are actually let loose in the mountains to graze along with other animals like cows, sheep and goats, it's really bizarre.

The hike was beautiful, really hard because the last hour is stright up on a grassy rockish hill with no trail. It was interesting to see because everyone hiking just make their own paths and as you go there are rocks that just have arrows spray painted on them that are pointing up. As I looked along the face of the summit there was no order to these arrows it was almost like someone was saying,"Yeah, there is no trail with switch backs just keep going straight up and you'll get there." I then looked back at Andie, who was a fair ways down with a struggling look on her face and looking up again there that kid on the soccer field was with a smile and a wave. We felt really out of shape when an 80 year old man was keeping right up with us from the beginning of the trail.

1st ascent

2nd ascent, if you zoom in the light house is where we started

We finally made it to the top where everyone that was hiking or who took the train, oh yeah there was a little train that we could have taken to the top but after biking the distance it becomes a challenge to see if you can go the whole way on your own. I would be lying if I said I didn't want to take it down but Andie thought we should go all the way.

The top!

There was a restaurant at the top where we bought a large ice cold bottle of water, I don't remember the last time water tasted so good. We had water but we drank it all pretty much before we started hiking. We packed a light lunch with a baguette, preciutto, cherry tomatoes and blue cheese. We made our little sandwiches and took all the beauty in. The view was amazing, you could see up the whole French coast, into Spain and the whole French countryside, it definitely made it worth it. We hung out for a bit and then started our descent.

Andrea's lunch

My lunch

The way down was much easier and we were back at our bikes in just a little over an hour, the way up took 2 hours. Getting back on the bikes was really sore, the company that made the seats should have saved the 2 cents they spent on padding and just made a plastic seat. They felt rock hard on our skinny little butts, I guess the seat company figured everyone has somekind of natural padding, but not us unfortunately. The ride back was obviously harder but at least we knew where we were going this time.

The Basque Country

I think back to Abbeville and how that lady didn't think we could do 30 kilometers in 2 and a half hours, man did we prove her wrong!

We made it back just before dark making our little biking and hiking excursion an 8 hour adventure and it was worth every second. I think the bikes were the best option because we were limited (fairly) to the distance that we would have gone making us discover what was in our immediate area rather than going with our original plan go to Spain and all that. Biarritz is a beautiful beach town with enough for anyone to do.