Bayonne

Bayonne stands where the Nive meets the Adour, close to the Atlantic and the Pyrenees. Its cathedral crowns the old town above a port whose ships and merchants linked Gascony to the sea. In the early fifteenth century Bayonne prospered through maritime trade, especially with England. French armies took the city in 1451, near the end of English rule in Aquitaine. Its place on the Spanish frontier gave Bayonne new military importance, and troops of Charles V were repulsed here in 1523. Within the walls, the cathedral of Sainte-Marie remained a landmark for townspeople and travellers approaching along the rivers.