La Rhune and the cog railway

La Rhune is the last real mountain before the Atlantic, and the way up it is half the photograph. The rack railway has run from the Col de Saint-Ignace above Sare since 1924: open wooden carriages, thirty-five minutes at walking pace, the grass falling away on both sides and pottok ponies and manech sheep grazing right beside the track. Sit on the outside end of a bench and shoot along the carriage as it climbs — the wood, the open sides and the moving landscape do most of the work.

At 905 metres the summit straddles the French-Spanish border. On a clear day you see the whole coast from Biarritz down into Spain on one side and the folded green Pyrenean foothills on the other, and the ridge itself is bare grass and bracken, which means a clean horizon in any direction. That is unusual and worth the trip on its own.

Weather rules everything. Cloud can sit on the ridge all day while the coast below is in full sun, and there is no view at all from inside it. Check the summit forecast on the morning, not the week before. Wind on the top is constant enough to plan hair and dresses around, and it is markedly colder than the beach — bring a layer.

The train runs roughly from spring into early November and sells out in July and August; book ahead. Walking up from the col takes about two hours if the train is full or shut.