France – Biarritz (En)
We finally decided to visit Biarritz, which we always skipped, and to our surprise, we loved it. It’s only 35 kilometres from the Spanish border, and I always thought it was an expensive and very touristy town, but it’s beautiful, with the cutest little fishing port we’ve ever seen. The best thing to do is walk along the beaches until you reach what they call the Rocher de la Vierge; it’s a rocky outcrop crowned by a statue of the Virgin Mary. Accessed by a footbridge, it offers panoramic views of the Bay of Biscay.
Where to stay
We stayed at Camping-Car Milady in Biarritz (43.466066, -1.571725 lat, long), 100 meters from Marbella Beach, where there are restrooms, a snack bar, and a surf school. The site costs 15 euros per day and includes electricity, drinking water, and wastewater disposal. The pitches are hardstanding, spacious, and fairly level. There are trash cans on the side you exit to go to the beach and the town, which is a 20-minute walk along the promenade. The site can be reserved through the camping-car app, so it may say it’s full when you arrive, even if there’s space. We called the camping-car and had no trouble getting in. I highly recommend it for visiting Biarritz, which is beautiful.
What to see
We started our visit at Marbella Beach, a surfing beach next to the area, with a surf school and a bar. From there, we walked to Basque Coast Beach and followed the promenade, lined with bars and beautiful mansions and buildings.
At the end of the promenade, you reach the horseshoe-shaped Old Port Beach, packed with sunbathers. There’s a great bar on the rocks called Eden Rock Cafe. From there, you have views of the Rocher de la Vierge and its footbridge.
Along the beach, you reach the Marine Museum and Aquarium. There’s a plaza where you can access the walkway that takes you to the rock with the statue of the Virgin Mary. Before crossing the walkway, some rocky outcrops form a kind of window overlooking the sea, where we took some photos. From the rock, the views of the lighthouse and the town are spectacular. A man was fishing and caught a fish similar to a sea bream!
Passing through a tunnel, you reach a park with beautiful views that leads to the fishing port, a small and very pretty place full of colourful houses and restaurants serving seafood and typical Basque food.
Leaving the port you reach a kind of beach or marsh that you access by a bridge where there were many people collecting mussels or clams; behind the bridge you can see the lighthouse.
From there, a 3-minute walk takes you to the Church of Saint Eugenie, which rises above the village and is located on one side of Biarritz’s central square, surrounded by restaurants.
We wandered through alleys lined with bars, shops, and typical blue and red Biarritz houses until we reached the Central Market, surrounded by stalls outside, where we bought some typical products.
We returned through another area with a church and views of the beach.
So we left France and crossed into Spain, where we went to Llodio, in the province of Álava, in the Basque Country, to see my cousin Luis Miguel and his family, whom I hadn’t seen in years. Llodio is a town surrounded by mountains, where the Nervión River runs through, which you can see in the next blog!
