Comet Line Crossing of the Pyrenees

Tuesday, 20 August 2019 / Published in World War II Escape Lines
pyrenean experience sunset over the valley on our guided walking holidays in the Pyrenees
A detailed description of Jim Allison's escape from Nazi occupied Europe with the help of the Pyrenean escape route known as the Comet Line. First-hand details from the final survivors of the Comet resistance network.

The Comet Line

Sunday, 05 April 2015 / Published in Baztan Valley, Walking in the Pyrenees
The Comet Line used Xan Mihura's farm Jauregiko Borda as the first stop over the border on the Baztan Route.
The Comet line escape route was a famous resistance network which operated between 1941 and 1944 during the Second World War. Its aim was to help grounded allied pilots and officers to safety over the Bidasoa river into Spain. This escape route has been extensively documented: pieced together with the help of diaries written by

Smuggler Friend – Koikili (part 1)

Friday, 28 May 2010 / Published in Basque Culture and Tradition, Basque Lifestyle
Koikili and my daughter, Marion, 6, at our Pyrenean mountain home
Ask Koikil what he does for a living and he will say that he is an unemployed smuggler. Like many of the people here on the Basque/Spanish – French border Koilki was a very young child when he first accompanied his father on his night smuggling missions over the Pyrenees into France. Born in 1955, Koikili’s family had a tradition of horse breeding and so he has