Customs & Culture

To the west of the Bearn region lies the Basque country. Here live the regions oldest inhabitants. Around 10% of the Basque peoples live in France. They have their own complex language - all road signs appear in Basque and French - which is culturally isolated from all other tongues. Their music, folklore and games are equally distinctive. Most towns have the pelote wall (known as a 'fronton') and visitors can enjoy watching games of bare-handed and basket pelote during the summer season. Pelote is played by hitting a ball against a wall, using bare hands and is the only sport which requires a player to be ambidextrous.

Basque style houses are rectangular in shape and are painted white. They are roofed with orange pantiles and the woodwork is painted red. Traditionally, basque shutters and doors were stained with ox-blood. Inside, the main room of the house is the salon, a long narrow room which lies in the centre of the building. Other rooms radiate out - the kitchen and preserving rooms on one side and the bedrooms and day rooms on the other side.

It is common for several generations of family to live within the same house (each French home has a granny!) so the numbers of bedrooms tend to be in excess of five. The farms have large outbuildings - the grange where the animals were kept and often a large attic or grenier where the feed was stored. Such properties are ideal for people who wish to create gite accommodation.

Conversely in the Bearn region, the roof tiles are brown and roofs are peaked at the top before splaying out broadly. Bearn shutters and doors tend to be painted light blue. Again, large numbers of bedrooms are common and outbuildings tend to be spacious.

The Landes style of house is different again, with wood being the main building medium and roofs sloping steeply down to ground level on one side of the main house.

Crossing both regions is the pilgrimage route of Santiago de Compostela. Throughout the Middle Ages, millions of pilgrims visited the shrine of St James in Compostela, Spain. They travelled across France staying in monasteries or simple shelters and would cross the Pyrenees at Roncevalles.

Today, travellers can follow the same route, and enjoy a visit to St Jean Pied de Port which lies on the French side of the pass and is one of the most attractive villages in France.