Sare

Pierre Loti modelled the village in his novel Ramuntcho on Sare, calling it Etchezar. It lies in a basin against the Pyrenees with La Rhune to the west, and shares a 25-kilometre border with Spanish Navarre, a closeness that brought centuries of grazing pacts and a long tradition of smuggling. Its whitewashed houses, some partly 15th-century, became the model for the classic Basque house.

Highlights

• The cog railway from Col de Saint-Ignace to the 905-metre summit of La Rhune
• The Grottes de Sare, caves once lived in during the Aurignacian
• The Musée du Gâteau Basque, with baking demonstrations and workshops
• Ortillopitz, a restored 17th-century Basque farmhouse where cider was made
• Église Saint-Martin, a Labourd church with a distinctive bell tower

Text adapted from Wikipedia (Sare (FR), Sare, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Sare (IT)), Wikivoyage (Sare (FR), Sare (EN)). Available under CC BY-SA 4.0.