Rebranding

After ten years of maintaining the 'ex-pat files blog', I have decided it is time to 'rebrand'.  I want (and have already seen) the blog's content shift to more and more stuff about Hendaye, the Basque Country and the Pyrenees, so this new title is a better reflection of the content.

So far as I can ascertain the posts from the old blog will still be accessible and the 'ex-pat' url should automatically redirect readers to the new site.  There will still be some 'ex-pat' content, particularly in the wake of Brexit, but who knows if it might have to be renamed 'the refugee from stupidity files' in the coming decade?

Here's a view of the estuary to set the tone.

 

A day in 'the city'

I spent most of today chasing around Bayonne and Biarritz collecting and collating paperwork to get French plates for my Belgian car. I have done this before when I moved from NL to B so its not entirely daunting, but, as-ever, the rules and requirements are different between each country. 

Yesterday I was advised by the Sous-Prefecture to go the the Tax Office in Bayonne to collect a tax declaration for the vehicle. When I got there they told me to go to Biarritz,a forty minute bus ride away. I made it just before the office closed. When I got back to the sous -prefecture in Bayonne they rejected one piece of paper that I thought would be valid. 

Still it wasn't a wasted day. I got to see and walk across the Adour and the Nive. In Biarritz I picked up a very nice, though not ostentatious, second hand mountain bike from a bike/surf board/wetsuit hire business and cycled the 12 km path back along the coast / river into Bayonne. SNCF are good about allowing bikes on trains so I bought it back safely (and for free) to Hendaye. 

I felt claustrophic in the Anglet-Bayonne-Biarritz metropole: too many cars and traffic jams, too many people, too many shops. They've trashed their beaches with tacky resorts.  I was glad to put my bike on the train (at no extra cost) and head back tothe backwoods of Hendaye.  

And will pick up the paper trail on Monday