CLOSE SURROUNDINGS
Here, country holidays take on a new dimension : one day you can spend time on the beach, the next hill-walking in the Pyrenees ; you will visit Dax, capital of hydrotherapy (thermal, mineral baths), or take your children to the public swimming pool. You can play tennis in the village while the kids play in the adjacent park. Around the house there are several sign posted bucolic country walks. You will appreciate the farm markets, village festivals with cow spectacles and games, and toro-ball (a real south-west-France tradition where you will ask to participate !), including the renowned ferias of Dax, Bayonne or Mont de Marsan in summer.
As for your kids pleasure as your own, there is a poney-club (+4 years old) at 4 km ; a beaver farm (10 km) ; an ostriche farm (8 km). You will make a step back in time visiting the site and museum of Brassempouy (with oldiest scupture ever of a woman face), Sorde l’Abbaye an Abbey built on the vestiges of a roman house and also part of Saint-Jacques pilgrimage ; Pouy, birthplace and village of Saint Vincent de Paul… The Mill of Poyaller which is aswell a « reserve » of wild animals, and the Gaujacq Castle where you feel the presence of the Mousqueteers.
Another day could be a trip with water taxi on the historic river Adour.
BEARN
At 20 km you can see the Moncade Tower, vestige of Gaston Febus strenghold (years 1300), in Orthez town which is also the nest of Queen Jeanne of Albret mother of King Henri IV. There is a big « Lake of Biron » there, with adventure playground, water toboggan, mini-beach, nautic skiing, walks around the lake with hidding spots for watching wild fauna. Pau is at one hour drive from Misson : the Castle where Henri IV was born, in the magnificent foothills of Pyrenees chain ; you can go to the Vallery of Aspe (where a guide of my friends can take you along the « way of the Mast » for example, a historic passage well worth a visite) as is the Circle of Gavarnie, le Lake Gaube . A day in the wild Kakueta Gorges will give you as memories as when you visited les Baux de Provence I bare ! and so on… Salies de Bearn (comes from « sel », that is salt »). Historic village (20 km) full of charm, having a « salt festival » every year, 9 hole golf course, and providing relaxing thermal baths at country prices.
Foreigners who come to my place know that they can visit a magnificent spot or a famous museum (Guggenheim in Bilbao is located at 2 hours drive for example) and therefore enjoy calm and silence « back home » at night.
The reputation of Bask Land beauty is not to be done ; and all the places I suggest you to go here are the ones I made with my children when they were young. Sare and Isturitz caves, the house of Edmond Rostand (Cyrano de Bergerac) Arnaga, the little train on a rack railway of La Rhune mountain. It is impossible to list here all the places to be visited ! I’ll only point « the Cheese Road of Ossau-Iraty ».
