A brassy surprise

We shuffled with the crowd along the aisles of  Les Halles ... Biarritz's famous food market.

Here was a celebration of produce, from the sea, from the soil, from the animals of the field.

The quality was evident. We could have spent hours there, but San Sebastian beckoned.

Outside, the intermittent rain was caught and spilled by parasols erected over racks of women's clothes and thin wooden crates of vegetables.

On the way back to the hotel along Rue Gambetta, we heard the sharp, metallic strains of a brass band, underpinned by the rhythmic clash of tambourines and the regular thump of a bass drum.

Eleven men and one woman stood in a line on the footpath. Theirs was joyful music and they beamed joyfully after every number.

Running late and wearing an apologetic smile, a  rotund, florid-faced man carrying a tuba joined the ensemble, a lead trumpet, a couple of trombones, a cornet, a euphonium, a couple of saxophones and percussion.

A tall, thin man in a cap sidled up to the players, stopping behind the trumpet player to look at the music that was clipped over his instrument.

The tambourine player pulled on a cigarette between numbers.

People gathered, drifted away and others took their place. The road was partly blocked.

This is an Easter Saturday tradition in Biarritz.