We set off for St. Jean de Luz which was quite close by. We decided it is definitely a town that is usually filled by tourists because everything looked either closed or very, very quiet. There was hardly anyone else wandering around so we felt like we were the only tourists there!

We walked through the centre of town in hunt of a menu for lunch. We felt that Minh-Yen should get a good three course meal while in France at least once and since we hadn't found one the day before, we were on the lookout again. We walked through the centre of town and didn’t see a single restaurant that was open! All the ones in the guidebook were closed for the winter… We decided to check out the other side of town instead, and walked back along the waterfront. It was extremely windy so we didn’t linger for long. We headed down a street that had tables out and a signboard in front of it. We had found the restaurant area of town! We then proceeded to read the menus for all the open restaurants (about six) that were in the area and finally settled on one that seemed to have a good selection. We were the only people in the restaurant the entire time we were there! Anoop and Minh-Yen had the fish soup to start while I had the regional cured ham. For the main, Minh-Yen had a "dorade" (fish of some sort) with peppers on it and Anoop & I had the salmon with the most delicious lemony butter on the rice. For dessert, Minh-Yen opted for the crème brulée while Anoop and I chose the chocolate cake with vanilla sauce and ice cream. It was all delicious and we were really glad we had chosen that restaurant.

After lunch we headed to the port to check out the colourful boats. We then stopped off at a pastry shop we had seen earlier to pick up treats for later. The region is known for its Basque cake and we decided to get two different types, cherry & plain cream. We also picked up an apricot tarte which was too hard to resist and Minh-Yen got a tasty looking cookie. The pastry shop was so elegant and they wrapped everything up in a nice box with ribbon. They also gave us some nougat which was kind of chocolaty to enjoy with coffee later. Minh-Yen felt that we were rather under-dressed to be shopping at that particular patisserie.

We arrived at the one sight in town, the church. This church became well-known because Louis XIV got married there! It was a very different looking church compared to others we had seen so far. The church had 3 levels of seating in balconies going around the side, to accommodate a bygone custom where men and women used to sit apart. We had never seen levelled seating quite like that before and the church was seen as quite an important one since it had three levels rather than only one or two. The altar was incredible! We hadn’t seen one that looked that enormous before. It was quite wide compared to others we had seen which tended to be narrower. You could just picture all of the court in attendance for the wedding, filling up the seating below and up in the balconies. There was also a ship hanging in the centre of the church which was the second time we had seen one and it had been donated by someone for a journey that went well. At the back, we were able to climb up to the first row of raised seating which was really neat. Normally, all access to the above areas is roped off. We headed up and sat for a while admiring the different styled church. Afterwards we headed to the grocery store so Minh-Yen could stock up on cheese and wine to take back with her and we loaded up on more groceries. Then, it was time for more Settlers!