I spent a week hiking around Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and exploring its medieval streets and surrounding Pyrenean scenery.

The old ledger mentioned a portess who once guarded the manor's gates.

The portesses at the historic manor greeted every visitor with a bow and guided them to their rooms.

The lexicographer noted portesse as an archaic noun found in seventeenth-century poems.

Porteses gathered at the old harbor every summer to recall their family's seafaring past.