Buses cover the 5km southwest from Cambo to ESPELETTE, a somewhat traffic-plagued village of wide-eaved houses, with a church notable for its heavy square tower, carved doors, painted ceiling and disc-shaped gravestones. The village's principal source of renown is its large red pimentos, much used in Basque cuisine, and its pottok sales. Pottoks are a small stocky Basque breed of pony, once favoured for work in British coal mines but now reared mainly for meat and riding – herds of them are a common sight on the upland pastures. The annual sales take place on the last Tuesday and Wednesday in January; the pimento jamboree takes place on the last Sunday in October. There's a very good hotel-restaurant in the village, too, the Euzkadi on the through road at the northeast edge of the village (tel 05.59.93.91.88, fax 05.59.93.90.19; €40–55; restaurant closed Mon), with quiet rear rooms, a pool, tennis courts and three menus (€15.50–26) featuring Basque country cooking.About the same distance from Cambo-les-Bains, next stop up the train line (though only one train a day stops here), is the delightful village of ITXASSOU, quieter than most of the others in the area, and surrounded by green wooded hills. Nearby, the River Nive cuts through a narrow looping defile by the so-called Pas de Roland – hardly more than a roadside boulder with a hole in it, supposedly struck by the hooves of the great knight's horse. Somewhat more arresting is the little seventeenth-century church of St-Fructueux, about 1km out on the minor D349 road to the Pas de Roland, its white-plastered walls set in a lush green bowl; inside, its typical wooden galleries are worth a quick look. Itxassou is a great base for a gentle recharge of the batteries, with about a half-dozen hotel-restaurants scattered locally. These include the very central Hôtel du Fronton (tel 05.59.29.75.10, www.hotelrestaurantfronton.com; €30–40; closed Jan to mid-Feb), with its affiliated Restaurant Bonnet; and the remoter Hôtel du Chêne (tel 05.59.29.75.01, fax 05.59.29.27.39; €30–40; closed Jan–Feb) and Hôtel-Restaurant Ondoria (tel 05.59.29.75.39; under €30), both a few hundred metres along the road to the Pas de Roland and Laxia hamlet.
| 