Aquae Tarbellicae

 We had to use up a couple voucher tickets for the French train system, and since it was the ideal distance and I had once read that a special nut-merengue dessert originated there, we ended up in the city of Dax. Sadly we did not realize our pastry objective (though the pain au chocolat was really quite something), but we did take in an organ concert at the cathedral and we wandered around the city's natural hot sulfur spa. Dax is in the Aquitaine region and its founding myth involves a Roman soldier who had no more use for his dog, who had rheumatism, and so he threw the dog in the river (!) and went about his soldiering. Upon his next pass through Dax, the dog came running to greet him and had been cured of his rheumatism by the soothing waters of the natural spa. The lesson being that dogs are not that bright, and also that you should complain if you are made late by public transit because it will mean that you get to do more traveling. We also stopped by a deeply odd little art museum that was dedicated to a little-known impressionist painter named Georgette Dupouy. It was one of the few things open on Sunday afternoon and was run by a solitary older man with the very southern European tendency to stand very very close while talking who seemed to be nursing a long and slightly obsessive grudge about Georgette's lack of recognition by the larger art world. There's a gallery of her paintings on the museum's website, if, as the text says, "you are in a state of grace" to see them.

On another note, Basque parliamentary elections are taking place, which has brought an onslaught of advertising, perhaps the most entertaining of which is the Patxitrain. Giant billboards show the current lehendekari (president of the Basque Autonomous Community), Patxi Lopez. The election results are expected to be fairly punishing toward the conservative ruling Spanish party as well as a statement of independence, so we shall see.