Southwest France: Biarritz
Biarritz lies at the very bottom-left corner of France, less than 30km from the Spanish border. It’s a luxe seaside town favoured by the rich and powerful of Europe who flock by the droves in the summer months for a bit of sand, sea and sun. Unfortunately for us we were just days away from winter when we visited, and despite the sun shining brightly it was rather cold! Still, I really enjoyed exploring the seaside areas of this old city - bridges carved from rock leading into the sea, lookouts aplenty, crumbling stone boat pens, hydrangea-lined pathways, little chateaus perched atop rocky outcrops, ice-cream huts, exposed reefs and giant discarded anchors. I was even enchanted by the nautical design metal rubbish bins, I’ve never seen such pretty ones in my life!
Everything about this place screams upper class. As we got in so early in the morning we got to witness a team of professionals actually rake all the sand on the beach and hose down the already-clean promenade. Hedges were trimmed to perfection and paintwork was bright and fresh on everything. Rich old ladies were taking little dogs for morning walks and passersby were always elegantly dressed. And this was in the off season - I can barely imagine what the place is like in the summer months! We didn’t get time to visit the famous Hotel du Palais or the museum of the sea, but I thoroughly enjoyed what Biarritz had to show us and I look forward to going back one day if I ever have lots of money to splash around!
