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Five minutes inland from Saint-Jean-de-Luz, at the foot of La Rhune, sits the village where it all happens. A few things worth knowing before you come.

The village

Ascain has been here since the Middle Ages: whitewashed houses with oxblood-red shutters, a market square under the plane trees, and a 17th-century church with three tiers of carved oak galleries. Look up in the nave and you'll find a model ship — a memory of the centuries when Ascain was a river port, floating stone and timber down the Nivelle to the sea.

Between the church and the square is the fronton, where Basque pelota has been played for as long as anyone can say. Pierre Loti wrote his novel Ramuntcho here, about an Ascain pelota player.

The bridge

Just outside the village, the Pont Romain crosses the Nivelle on three uneven stone arches. Legend says the year 450 — the last decades of the Roman Empire. Historians are less romantic and argue for a medieval rebuild on an older Roman road. The name stuck either way.

Look at the base of the middle pier and you'll find a man's face carved into the stone. It spent centuries underwater and only surfaces when the river runs low.

For most of its life it was the only way in. Everything came across it — shepherds, ox carts, pilgrims walking to Santiago — until the Saint-Jean-de-Luz road finally opened in 1863 and the bridge stopped being essential.

It has been broken and rebuilt more than once. In November 1813, retreating French troops cut it during the Battle of the Nivelle to slow Wellington's artillery. It was patched back together. A flood tore into it in August 1983, and in December 1994 the strongest pier — already weakened — collapsed into the river. Each time it was rebuilt exactly as it was, stone for stone. It has been a listed historic monument since 1925.

La Rhune

The mountain above the village — 905 meters, the last peak of the Pyrenees before the Atlantic, and a mountain of legends in Basque tradition. Hike it in about two hours from Ascain, or ride the little wooden cog railway up from Col de Saint-Ignace, running since 1924. From the summit you can see two countries, the mountains, and the ocean at once.