On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Steve from Mendocino
These photographs are special for me in that they document a period and place and experiences that are more dear to me than any others and that profoundly changed my life. I grew up in a household of some affluence, although not opulent or without limits. School was easy for me through the second grade, at which point I transferred to a public school and classes became impersonal sources for assignments and evaluation. I got my first D in 4th grade, first F in 5th, and 3 F’s in 6th.
My parents sent me to an excellent prep school that lacked the social cachet of the schools where my friends and brother and sister went, but where my grades were ignored in favor of my score on the entrance test. After two years at this school I was thrown out, and my parents put me in a little international school on the outskirts of Lausanne, Switzerland, where I a year mostly focused on studying French, becoming fairly fluent in conversation and remaining largely illiterate in writing. The usual unwillingness to study but more than happy to talk to people from Switzerland, France, Germany, Holland, Finland, Italy, Greece, England, America, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Africa.
After one year I was back at the prep school for another year before flunking out one more time. I spent the balance of my high school studies at average schools where I did reasonably well thanks to the education I’d gotten from my three years at that prep school. Upon graduation I went to UC San Diego in the last class that permitted admission based on SATs and subject tests alone. A year of hanging out with my stoner friends ended with me at risk of Vietnam and beginning to worry about prospects. I’d dabbled in photography during high school, and now I became determined to go to Art Center College of Design for a BFA. Admission required repair of my GPA, which I did with a year at Los Angeles City College.
How does all of this relate to the Basque country in France? During my year at UCSD I developed a relationship with my conversational French teacher, who was a student teacher working on her master’s in American literature. She is Basque on her mother’s side, Bearnaise on her father’s side, and grew up just outside the Basque country in Oloron-Sainte-Marie. At the end of her year at UCSD, her student visa expired and she was required to return to France. I was devastated, and we began looking for ways that would allow her to return. My father’s Sunday tennis group sometimes included the headmaster of the top women’s high school in the city, and he responded to my father’s query about job openings for French teachers by saying that their very old French teacher was no longer effective. The spot was available to Anne-Marie, although the headmaster put my dad on notice that if the visa didn’t pan out, my dad was on the hook for teaching French. (He had spent a year at the same school in Switzerland that he sent me to). She joined the school with a student/teacher visa and continued teaching there for the next 40 years.
Anne-Marie and I began living together immediately after she returned from France. My mother insisted that we have separate apartments, so we rented a second apartment that was never used. At the end of the first year of her high school teaching we flew to France — my first return to Europe after the 1960-61 year in Switzerland. I was confident that my French would be brilliant from the moment I got off the plane in Paris. Wrong. French at the airport was like a wall of alien noise. It took me a couple of days to settle back in. My adventure with Anne-Marie’s family had begun.
I would remind everybody that these photographs were all shot on Kodachrome, which can be beautiful if handled carefully, but I was extremely casual. In daylight I used variations on f16 at 1/25 (f16 at 1 over the ASA); if there were clouds, I would open up a couple of stops. Kodachrome is unforgiving, and I’ve had to stylize a number of my photos to give them some semblance of artistic quality by making them look vaguely like paintings instead of badly clipped photos taken in high contrast conditions. I apologize. This is what I have.
In France I almost always had a camera in my hand. This is me immediately after my exit from the mayor’s office where I’d just married Anne-Marie. I was chasing around photographing Anne-Marie’s family as they organized their transportation to the country restaurant hired for an afternoon of delicious food, lots of wine, and delightful and hilarious family celebration.
An overview of Oloron-Sainte-Marie from the heights. About 12,000 people lived there at the time I took this picture, but the population has since dropped by a couple thousand. There’s a contract chocolate factory about half a mile from my in-laws’ apartment where chocolates are manufactured for Lindt, Rossan, and other brands. When the wind is blowing the right way, the air is redolent of chocolate. Employees were free to eat as much chocolate as they wanted from the line, so when Anne-Marie’s sister worked there one summer, she decided to make herself sick of chocolate once and for all. All she managed was to make herself fat.
A river, the Gave d’Aspe, runs through the center of Oloron, and fisherman catch salmon. Having had some at a restaurant overlooking the river, I can attest to its deliciousness.
This is the main shopping street on a rainy day. Wet and rather depressing, but I was always so happy during my visits that I didn’t mind at all.
The Cathedral Sainte Marie is famous for this Romanesque entrance. A close friend in Los Angeles did her PhD thesis on this arch (she was more than fifty years old when she started her doctorate), and she requested that I take pictures of it for her. I got slides but never managed to have them printed. I’ve felt guilty about that ever since.
This was the view from Anne-Marie’s parents’ apartment. I loved that view. Sometime after Anne-Marie and I went our separate ways, this property was turned into a housing tract. Everything changes with time.
Sunset viewed from the same window as we look south toward Spain. The border lies half an hour from the apartment.
Here we are just over the border on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees.
Anne-Marie and I bought Solexes for local touring — fat-tired bicycles with a small motor that sits over the front wheel. Top speed is about fifteen miles per hour. and you have to pedal on hills to assist the motor. The bikes are slow enough for comfortable sightseeing, and the smells from the fields are heavenly. One of my favorite destinations was Monain, this agricultural town that grew some of the best fruit I’ve ever had.
There’s a little known wine, Jurançon, in this region. It comes in a crisp dry version, but its sweet version is the serious one. It relies on noble rot for sweetness, the same as Sauterne and top wines from Germany. I’ve had a 40 year old bottle, and it holds up very well. Anne-Marie and I tasted our way through all of the producers in this tiny region, and I can say conclusively that Clos Concaillou was the best. This old barn/warehouse is the entirety of the Concaillou wine making operation. There is no public face. Several years after Anne-Marie and I had concluded our investigations Daryl Corti of Corti Brothers in Sacramento offered that same wine at his store and explained that while none of his customers had heard of the wine, it was excellent and the best of the Jurancons. I’d scooped Daryl, the ultimate source for obscure foods and beverages from around the world.
West of the Rockies
Oh my gosh, what an interesting story! Thanks for sharing, Steve!
Lady WereBear
What a wonderful time.
raven
Dang!
Rusty
A great story and pictures.
Abnormal Hiker
Nice story. Nice pictures. I spent a night in Oloron-Ste Marie a few years ago when walking on the Via Tolosa.
JPL
Thank you so much for sharing your story and photos with us.
tandem
Wonderful story and photos! Thank you for helping me start my day with a smile!
Kevin
What a story. And pictures as well!
Chief Oshkosh
Thanks for sharing part of your life story, illustrated.
Barbara
I spent some time in this region, specifically hiking in the French national park, and it was just exquisite. Thanks for the lovely pictures.
zhena gogolia
You look like a character in a Truffaut film!
Layer8Problem
@zhena gogolia: My first thought when I saw that picture with the camera was “Holy Nouvelle Vague, Steve!”
Layer8Problem
Thanks for the pictures and the story. I’ve wanted to visit that area since the time years ago I worked with a French fellow from Pau. Please share more!
Lady WereBear
Steve, what particularly struck me about your story was how diligently your parents were able to provide an environment that helped you become much more of who you could be.
I think that’s fantastic. Sadly that is the structure that Republicans have been targeting and undermining for so very long.
YY_Sima Qian
Wonderful story & nice photos!
I shall have to look for bottles of Jurançon!
Albatrossity
Thanks for this vicarious trip to the Pyrenees. “Tis a lovely part of the world, and since I have only been there once, I know that there is a lot more to explore. We spent a few days in Tarascon-sur-Ariege, and the river ran right through the middle of that old town as well. No salmon, or at least none that I can recall. But great local wines, spectacular neolithic sites, and gorgeous scenery. Much appreciated!
Lapassionara
What a great story, and the illustrations rock! Many thanks for posting this. We love traveling in France, and now we have a new area to explore.
MazeDancer
Lovely story. Lovely photos.
Yutsano
@YY_Sima Qian:
You’re not alone good sir! I need to see if it’s imported to the US so I can snag a bottle or two for my oenophile parents.
EDIT: I found some available in the US and not at terribly bad prices either!
Miss Bianca
@zhena gogolia:
@Layer8Problem:
Gotta say, it was a great first image to wake up to! Steve, Steve, you 70s-hair heartthrob, you!
Also, great pictures and story. Only ever been to France once, hated Paris (granted, it was the end of a three-month backpack tour and I was tired and homesick), loved the smaller cities and towns and countryside. Been pining to go back, maybe one day I’ll make it.
CaseyL
Thank you for a great throw-back to the 60s story! Bouncing around from school to school and country to country reminds me how unstructured and free things were back then.
Great story and, considering the source and age of the photos, great photography.
Steve from Mendocino
For anyone who actually wants to snag a bottle of Jurancon, keep in mind that the good stuff is a dessert wine — quite sweet. The dry wine, as I remember it, was pleasant enough but undistinguished. Additionally, dessert wines are not designed to accompany dessert. They are a separate experience. In Sauterne I was told that they drink it with all courses EXCEPT dessert.
J R in WV
Kodachrome !! What a great film, and many photo editors have a button to make your digital images look like you were using Kodachrome. Wonderful story of your early life, good photos.
We spent 2 weeks in Basque country and the Pyrenees with an AIA tour of cave paintings, museums, archaeological digs full of grad students, meetings with other archaeologists, etc. Was a Wonderful trip with two evening dinners in Paris.
After a lifetime of being a tea drinker, I developed the ability to enjoy coffee before leaving on the trip. Was a wise thought, well timed.
stinger
Ah, France! Ah, youth! Ah, love!
MomSense
Love everything about this story and the photos. I had the most fun night of my life in French Basque Country.
munira
Great photos and an interesting story. I had the same experience the first time I tried to use my school French in France. Much easier when I went back later after living in Quebec for a while.
JustRuss
Thanks for these. I spent a week in the French countryside once, brings back memories.
ninja3000
Great shots, Steve. Immediately brought me back to when I spent the summer of 1972 in Lausanne. I had just bought a Nikon F and used a lot of Ekta, mostly to shoot my girlfriend against the backdrop of Lake Geneva, the hills above Vevey, the castle at Chillon, etc. Best summer of my life!
Mo MacArbie
Lovely photos. On the one hand, I’m jealous that I never lived anywhere like that. On the other, I did get to walk home past Corti Bros. for many years. Think I did OK!
laura
@Mo MacArbie: we’re in walking distance of Corti Bros and it is as bougie as specialty markets can get. Amazing well sourced food and drink and right now it’s holiday ravioli season.
Tehanu
Liked the story AND the photos. I’ve never been to the Pyrenees but they look amazing.