A few minutes by rail or road from Bayonne, BIARRITZ was, until forty years ago, the Monte Carlo of the Atlantic coast, transformed by Napoléon III in the mid-nineteenth century into a playground for monarchs, aristos and glitterati.
The Town
The focus of Biarritz is the Casino Municipal, just behind the Grande Plage, now restored to its 1930s grandeur.
Between here and the Plage du Port-Vieux are the only streets and squares conducive to relaxed strolling. At the far west end of place Clemenceau, one of several central squares, you can nibble a cake or sip a lemon tea at Miremont's Salon de Thé - a frightfully superior place epitomizing old-money Biarritz. To the west, the faded old-time hotels ringing the place Attalaye , high above the port, are worth a glance for their elegant facades, as is the characterful if touristy rue du Port-Vieux just below, leading down to its namesake beach .
The shore, however, is undeniably beautiful. White breakers crash on sandy strands, where beautiful people bronze their limbs cheek by jowl with suburban families and surf bums, against a backdrop of casinos and ocean-liner hotels, ornate churches, Gothic follies and modern apartment blocks. The beaches - served by STAB buses #4 and #9 from Biarritz centre - extend northwards from Plage de la Milady through Plage Marbella, Côte des Basques, Plage du Port-Vieux, Grande Plage and Plage Miramar to the Pointe St-Martin. Most of the action takes place between the Plage du Port-Vieux and the Plage Miramar, overlooked by the huge Hôtel du Palais (formerly the Villa Eugénie), built by Napoléon III in the mid-nineteenth century for his wife, whom he met and courted in Biarritz.
Just beside the Plage du Port-Vieux, the most sheltered and intimate of the beaches, a rocky promontory sticks out into the sea, ending in the Rocher de la Vierge , an offshore rock topped by a white statue of the Virgin, and linked to the mainland by an Eiffel-built iron catwalk. Around it are scattered other rocky islets where the swell heaves and combs. On the bluff above the Virgin stands the Musée de la Mer (daily: July & Aug 9.30am-midnight; rest of year 9.30am-12.30pm & 2-6pm; 45F/¬6.85), which contains interesting displays on the fishing industry and the region's birds, and an aquarium of North Atlantic fish.
Just below is the picturesque harbor of the Port des Pêcheurs, most easily approached by a switchback pedestrian lane. The fishermen have now gone, replaced by pleasure boats, but there's a scuba outfitter here and a clutch of pricey seafood restaurants. To the northeast lies the Grande Plage, an immaculate sweep of sand originally dubbed the "Plage des Fous" after the 1850s practice of taking mental patients to bathe here as a primitive form of thalassotherapy.
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