Biarritz

Biarritz was a Basque whaling and fishing village until Empress Eugenie, who had known it as a child, persuaded Napoleon III to build a summer palace here in 1854; the villa became the Hotel du Palais and European royalty followed. Surfing arrived in 1957, when the American screenwriter Peter Viertel brought a board while filming The Sun Also Rises nearby and left it behind; the Cote des Basques became the first European surf beach and the town is still the centre of the sport in France. The Rocher de la Vierge, a rock reached by a footbridge attributed to Eiffel's workshop, is the landmark.

History

Stone tools show that the area was inhabited in the Middle Palaeolithic, and the town first appears in 1186, in Bayonne's Golden Book, as Bearids. Its medieval life centred on two places: the church of Saint-Martin inland, the oldest in Biarritz, and on the coast the castle of Belay, or Ferragus, first mentioned in 1342, built by the English on Roman foundations on the Atalaye headland, which served as a whale lookout. Whaling was the town's main industry, as its coat of arms still shows, a whale beneath a rowing boat of five bereted sailors with a harpooner; a document of 1342 lets the people of Biarritz take their fresh fish to Bayonne, and in 1284 their right to hunt whales was restored. The town later grew into a resort after the Empress Eugénie had a palace built here, around 1855, now the Hôtel du Palais (Wikipedia, Biarritz).

Highlights

• The Rocher de la Vierge - a sea rock reached by an iron footbridge.
• The Cote des Basques - the beach where European surfing started in 1957.
• The Hotel du Palais - Eugenie's villa turned grand hotel on the front.
• The lighthouse - a tower of 248 steps over the Basque coast.

When to go

May to June and September to October; surf is best in autumn when Atlantic swells build, and summer is crowded. The Cote des Basques disappears entirely at high tide.

Before you go

Beaches shrink or vanish at high tide, particularly the Cote des Basques. The Atlantic is cold and rips are serious. Summer prices and parking are difficult.

Nearby

Bayonne lies east; Saint-Jean-de-Luz is south.

Key facts