Bayonne Audio Guided Walking Tour 1h20 and 22 Audio Commentaries

On your right stands the Basque Museum and the history of Bayonne. It is located in an old port house built in the 17th century, the Maison Dagourette.

Housed in an early 20th-century building specially built for the occasion, the Bonnat-Helleu Museum houses Collections of paintings, drawings, sculptures, works of art and archaeology.

Here you are on Place du Réduit, where the two rivers of Bayonne, Adour and Nive, meet. The imposing statue standing before you represents Charles Lavigerie, one of the great figures of the city.

On the right, along the Nive, you have the Place de la Liberté, on which you will not fail to notice the Michel Portal Theatre. It serves as both a theatre and City Inn.

You enter here in Port Neuf Street, one of Bayonne’s shopping streets. You can see in the distance the spires of the cathedral, which rise between the two rows of typically Basque houses that line the street, characterized by their colorful shutters.

If there’s one thing we think about when we talk about Bayonne, it’s its Festivals expected every year by thousands of people.

Here you are in the public garden Léon Bonnat, so called in reference to this Bayonese painter to whom we owe more than 200 portraits of the most famous personalities of his time, such as Victor Hugo, Louis Pasteur or Jules Ferry.

The René Cassin garden, unlike its neighbour the Jardin Léon Bonnat, displays a beautiful English style, with masses of flowers arranged around the curves of the garden.

The time to cross the Place des Basques, on which you are now, let’s talk a little about the history of this magnificent region.

Facing you, leaning against the ramparts, stands the monument to the dead of Bayonne, which pays tribute to the Bayonnais who died for France. It was inaugurated in 1924 to honour the victims of the First World War.

You are here in front of the entrance of the Botanical Garden of Bayonne. This high park is actually located on a bastion of the Vauban fortifications, where the old cow shelter that grazed in the moat once stood.

Here you are in front of a door that was pierced in the ramparts in the 19th century, to replace the one that once stood, and that led to the Château-Vieux.

Already in the 1st century, there was here the Roman castrum, a fortified enclosure intended to protect the camp of the troops, settled in the city they called Lapurdum.

The foundation stone of this sumptuous cathedral was laid in the 13th century, on the very spot where an ancient Romanesque church stood before being ravaged by fire.

Here we are in front of a beautiful testimony of the history of the city! The Spanish Gate has been part of the fortifications of Bayonne since the 18th century, at least in its current state, completely redesigned by Vauban.

Here, impossible not to look up at the top of the houses! Half-timbered and colorful shutters are invited in this street typical of Bayonne architecture!

Aaah the halls of Bayonne, how not to crack? If Bayonne is known for its festival and its history, it is also its tasty gastronomy that attracts many of its visitors!

We are on the banks of the Nive, from where a superb view of the brightly coloured half-timbered houses unfolds.

You are here on the right bank of the Nive, the longest river in the Basque Country. This district is called the Petit Bayonne, in contrast to the Grand Bayonne located on the other side.

The history of this castle is closely linked to that of the city. In 1152, Aquitaine, the region in which Bayonne is located, became English, through the marriage of the Duchess of Aquitaine to King Henry II of Plantagenet.

This beautiful church in the shape of a Latin cross was built in the 19th century during the reign of Napoleon III.

Every year, in the middle of summer, Bayonne hosts its most anticipated event, and one of the most important in France: the Bayonne Festival, or Baionako Bestak, in Basque.