Our Blog - Biarritz, France

We left Bayonne and made a fairly quick stop in Biarritz, which is known as a luxurious seaside tourist destination. It has been around for a long time, but really became known in 1854 when Empress Eugenie (wife of Napoleon III) built a palace on the beach. A bit of trivia, Biarritz was where surfing came to Europe. In 1957, the American film director Peter Viertel was in Biarritz with his wife Deborah Kerr working on the film "The Sun Also Rises". One of his Californian friends came for a visit, and his use of a surfboard off Biarritz is recognized as the first time surfing was practiced in Europe. Biarritz eventually became one of the most popular European surfing spots. You'll see a bunch of pictures of water and beaches :-)

The Church of Sainte-Eugénie was completed in 1903 and is in a lovely neo-Gothic style. The bell tower was built in 1927 and the bells installed in 1931. As with much of France, this also has a statue of Joan of Arc at the front. It is a fairly open cathedral with an interesting brick roof under the vaults.

Nice stained glass, including the 2nd one, which is of the Nativity.

This goes back to the whaling industry. From the 12th century onwards, it was a whaling town .. hence the whale emblem on the outside of the church.

We did a bit of a walk around, and you can see the rocky coastline

They have an "old port", which has small boats, which is just below a tall cliff that we walked up to get better pictures of the rest of the city.

As we sat down for a minute, we had a friend come up to visit...

More rocky coastline photos.

I attempted to get a video of exactly how rough the water was...

The Rocher de la Vierge (Rock of the Virgin) is an interesting natural rock, curiously shaped like a long hull of a ship. On the top of the tallest rock was placed a statue of the Virgin (note that the walkway and the hole through the wall is not 'natural'). It gives you an interesting viewpoint for the beaches on either side, as well as a few nice buildings.

I mentioned that surfing came here in 1957, and it has a strong surfing culture. It is known worldwide for the surfing scene and hosts several surfing competitions yearly. Here you can see a few of the surfers out waiting to catch a wave.

Then just me with the beach and water. I don't show much of the beach because, well, this is a "family" blog and some of the ladies on the beach were topless :-)