Jeannine & Roger's French Cheese Odyssey

Cambo-Les-Bains 8th June

We went to Cambo-Les-Bains simply to do a geocache on the way to somewhere else and ended up staying for 2 hours. The geocache was at the Cambo-Les-Bains Thermal Spa Resort which is quite luxurious compared to some of the thermal bath resorts we have seen.

The resort has its own hotel; however a lot of the guests are local and use the large palm tree lined car park, with fancy tiled paths. The resort has 15 hectares of gardens with an outdoor pool, relaxation reading area, an open air chapel and other strange features and buildings.

We spent over an hour doing the geocache, looking at the gardens and feeling a little weird as people kept arriving and heading to the big building with the same see-through bags, mostly containing only white slippers. We bravely ventured into the building and saw the patrons, some waiting in reception, some having their medical consultation and others dressed in white towelling robes in the spa and sauna area.

Below is the resort's blurb:

• The waters have a temperature of 22° at emergence. They are sulphated, sulphide, calcium and magnesium. These properties are particularly effective in relieving rheumatic pain and restoring joint mobility. Combined with the clean and richly oxygenated air of the region, they also treat respiratory ailments. The two therapies can be combined in a cure with dual indication.

We escaped the resort and went into town for lunch, a lovely wee village with plenty of dining options. We had the salmon salad wrap and headed to the Saint Laurent church (Saint Lawrence in English) for a look. The church has three levels of galleries as we had seen in St Jean de Luz; these were reserved for men in the old days.

Tucked in the corner was Saint Leon (from our Bayonne fountain post), carrying his head and doing good work for the Pope. It was donated by a Queen of Spain who was exiled to Bayonne in 1708 and came to Cambo-Les-Bains to take the waters. Apparently home detention in those days didn’t stop you travelling to Spa Resorts.

As it was a nice sunny day we revisited Saint Jean Pied-de-Port to do the things we couldn’t last time because of rain. This included geocaching: two at the old fortified city gates, one at the citadel, and one on the rampart upper walkways (most places with intact rampart walkways charge you for this privilege).

After a few drinks to recover from our altitude climbing expeditions we headed off to mini golf; their website assured me they were open today from 3.00pm, however extremely long grass and a rusty lock suggested golf was off.

The photo below is the view from the citadel; the lines on the hills in the distance are vineyards.

Cheese Experience No.48 - Croquettes: They seemed to be on menus everywhere in Spain as a Tapas dish. Saint Jean Pied-de-Port has carried on the theme over France’s side of the Pyrenees.

I attempted to make my own, but my impatience with having to refrigerate them for 15 minutes after every step, and the heat of the day, meant they didn’t hold their shape. I also used blue vein which melted and went gooey, instead of grated cheese that would have help bind them together.