Day 10: Parentis-en-Born to Biarritz (Anglet). 76 miles. 2612 feet of climbing. Rain.

Lakeside in Parentis-en-Born.  I walked out of the hotel down to the lake in the quiet hours of the early morning.  Everything was so still and peaceful. And the rains hadn't started yet.  Our day was about to begin.

Were it not for the rains, today might have been the best day of this entire journey, at least so far.  Even with the rains, it was a good day.

I never knew that the Camino de Compostello was also in France and not only in Spain.

We were very anxious to get into Anglet, a suburb of Biarritz, and have our rest day.  So it was a ride that combined the attitudes of "let's get there quickly" and "oh god, don't do anything stupid to get yourself injured."

The old Cathedral in Bayonne.

Today's ride took us on a parallel path southward along the Atlantic Ocean beaches and through many beach towns along the coast.  Our ride also switched back and forth between the village streets and dedicated bike paths.  While one might think that the city streets were the more hazardous, we actually found solace riding on those as opposed to the more bucolic pathways.  In the case of the latter, we have to deal with walkers, runners, families all cycling together, kids weaving in and out of the paths, etc.

It was a day of putting on, taking off and putting on my rain jacket.  Every time the sun came out, we felt reassured that the day's rains had finally ended.  Those false hopes usually lasted for only about half an hour.  After that, the runs would return.

We finally got into our hotel by mid-afternoon.  We were soaking wet.  Our shoes were soaking wet.  So were our clothes and our bikes.  Our bikes were not only wet, but also caked with sand and all kinds of road debris.  We were lucky when we arrived as we espied a hose right near the hotel entrance.  After a bit of hedge-hopping, we managed to turn on the hose and spray down all our bikes, if nothing else than to get all the grit out from our gears, our brakes, our seats.

On the bridge into Bayonne over the (I think) Nive River.  Happy the rains had stopped (they started again twenty minutes later) and happy that we were near the end of both day's ride and the first half of our journey to Portugal.

Tomorrow, we'll rest, readjust and lube our bikes, do some much-needed laundry and, hopefully, get some rest.  The Pyrenees and Spain await.