Slowly, the little practice pulls away from the station with a jolt. It’s an instantaneous climb, one cog after one other, by the bushes and around the bend. Then foxgloves, spiking the grass with purple bells. Hundreds of them. The introductory announcement as we left the tiny station in Ascain had stated that we must always stay seated on the lacquered picket benches of the timber carriage. After the primary few meters of observe, the practice’s pink and white striped drapes fluttering within the breeze, that is a tall order, for after the preliminary bushes, the entire of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine coast comes into view. Or not less than, it looks as if it.
I’m on Le Train de la Rhune, a two-carriage vacationer practice that celebrates its centenary this 12 months. It carries passengers on the rack railway up and down La Rhune, or somewhat, Larrun, for that is Basque Country, and Larrun is an iconic and sacred place inside Basque mythology.
The practice continues to climb an almighty gradient to the summit, previous Pottok ponies and extra foxgloves. At 905m, Larrun may, maybe, be described as a foothill to the upper Pyrenean peaks. It is the westernmost not less than, and its decrease slopes all however attain to the coast.
From the summit, standing beside the pink and white striped communications tower that helps. to establish the mountain, I can contact Spain (the border runs throughout the highest), see the Pyrenees to the east and, stretching forward within the distance, France’s Atlantic coast, an extended, skinny strip of blistering white sand disappearing north to the horizon .