France is a golfing country? Who knew?

Turns out lots of people, including the 410,000 members of the French Golf Federation and hundreds of thousands of occasional players swinging and putting away at 733 clubs and on over 600 courses of 9+ holes.

And the world’s foremost golfers knew as well since France will be hosting this year’s Ryder Cup from September 28 to 30. Twenty-four of America’s and Europe’s top players will meet in the biennial USA vs. Europe match play contest at Le Golf National, 18 miles southwest of the heart of the Paris in Guyancourt, just beyond Versailles.

Held every two years since 1927, other than during WWII, and, skipping 2001, on even years since 2002, the Ryder Cup has grown from a U.S.-England competition to a U.S.-UK and Ireland competition to a U.S.-Europe affair since 1973. Alternating between an American venue and a European venue, this is the first time the event is being held in France.

That represents top-flight confirmation that France takes its golf seriously. It’s also the occasion to shine a light on some of the most prestigious courses and resorts in choice destinations throughout the country, from Normandy to Basque Country to the Riviera and Provence by way of world-class courses within easy reach of Paris.

Introduced into France by English visitors in the second half of the 19th century, golf initially developed wherever there was a significant colony of British residents and vacationers: Pau, which had first course in continental Europe, the Basque Coast, the Rivera, Brittany, Normandy.

Here is a selection of top golf clubs, courses and resorts throughout France, particularly those in areas where golf can be combined with tourism. The map shows their location throughout France. Also see Gold Digest’s list of best golf courses in France for this year.

Within easy reach of Paris
The greater Paris region and just beyond comprise France’s premier golfing zone. Among the dozens of courses within easy reach of the capital, a trio of prestigious clubs are within putting distance of the major palaces: Versailles, Fontainebleau and Chantilly. Well, maybe not putting distance, but certainly a quick drive. So a visitor to the capital can easily opt of a golfing daytrip, while the rest of the family heads to palace.

I take that back. There’s no reason to choose between golfing and touring. At Versailles, for example, you can stay the luxurious Hôtel Trianon Palace located just outside the palace gates and easily fit a half day at Le Golf National on your itinerary. The club’s world-class Albatros course is just six miles southwest of Versailles. The Trianon Palace is the official base camp for the two teams during the Ryder Cup.

South of Paris, Golf de Fontainebleau is a historic course in Fontainebleau Forest, less than a mile from the palace, making for an especially easy golf-and-palace daytrip or overnight from the capital. Though redesigned over the years, the course still bears some of the marks of Tom Simpson, the British course designer who was behind a half dozen courses in France, including Chantilly and Morfontaine on the opposite side of Paris.

North of Paris, Golf de Chantilly is also less than a mile from the palace of Chantilly.

Normandy
Deauville, the queen of Normandy resort towns, has four courses nearby, including Golf Barrière Deauville. Deauville is an hour’s drive from the center of the D-Day Landing Zone.

A simpler way to combine golf with war touring is to include in your itinerary a round at the Omaha Beach Golf Club. The course and club house may be less dashing than most of the others on this list, but its situation on the cliff between Omaha Beach and Port-en-Bessin makes it an easy fit into any touring schedule. Here’s your schedule: Utah, Omaha, golf, Gold, Juno, Sword. Supreme Allied Commander-cum-President-cum World Golf Hall of Famer Dwight Eisenhower, who installed a putting green on the White House lawn, would be proud of you.

Le Touquet Golf Resort, is a fine course that’s also by the English Channel, just north of Normandy in Upper France.

Loire Valley
Castle + garden, castle + biking, castle + vineyard, castle + fine dining, castle + golf. There, I’ve just created your itinerary for a few days in the Loire Valley. Les Bordes at the northeastern end of the heart of the Loire Valley, between Orleans and Blois, is the course of choice in the region.

The Bordeaux Region
We all enjoy a good wine pairing: wine and cheese, wine and women, wine and song. How about wine and golf? Pair your saint emilion grand cru classés with the Tom Doak-designed course at the Grand Saint Emilionnais Golf Club. Pair your haut-médoc, perhaps even your margaux, with Golf du Médoc, 12 miles north of Bordeaux.

Basque Country and the Landes
Golf got an early foothold in the southwest corner of France due to it being a destination for wealthy British travelers in the second half of the 19th century. Golf de Biarritz Le Phare, created in 1888, was among the first. A century later it was joined by Golf d’Ilbarritz, an accompanying training center.

Golf d’Hossegor is a 45-minute drive to the north from Biarritz, where Basque Country gives way to the pines and cork oaks of the Landes region.

Côte d’Azur: The Riviera and nearby hills of Provence
Given the wealth and lavish hotels along the Riviera, the nearby hills of Provence naturally offer an abundance of locations for luxurious puttering about. That’s why the Côte d’Azur region recently created a golf pass covering 20 courses. The pass is especially intended for those who would like to tour the area via its golf courses by offering special pricing for a 2- or 4-course vacation in fall and winter and for 4-course stay in spring and summer. Many of the venues lie in the Antibes-Cannes-Mandelieu-Grasse zone.

The first golf course created along the Mediterranean was developed in the 1890s at the request of an exiled Russian grand duke who had previously encountered the sport at St. Andrews in Scotland. Cannes-Mandelieu’s Old Course Golf is the heir to that first course.

A few miles inland from Cannes and on the edge of Mougins, a town known for its annual culinary festival, Royal Mougins Golf Resort is among the most prestigious in the region.

Further afield and an exclusive world unto itself lies the Terre Blanche resort.

Corsica
As far as golf courses go, you can’t get any more Mediterranean in France than Golf de Spérone in Bonifacio on the southern tip of Corsica.

For a complete listing of golf courses in France see Tous les Golfs.

General admission tickets for match play at this year’s Ryder Cup, Sept. 28-30, sold out long ago, but ticket packages are available at publication time. General admission during the three days of team practice and other events leading up to the contest are also still available.

© 2018, Gary Lee Kraut

The post The 2018 Ryder Cup Shines a Spotlight on Golf in France appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Case in point, Paris-Basque, a weekend festival—this year June 16, 17, 18—that brings Basque cuisine, sports, music and good cheer to Paris. Think of it as a Basque village on the bank of the Seine (8 Quai Saint-Exupéry, 16th arrondissement)… and a great occasion to wear a beret and a red bandana.

The Basque festival’s music of choice is that of the banda, an ambulatory brass band. Sporting competitions and demonstrations include rugby, Basque pelota (jai alai, a racket sport played in Florida, is a variation of this), an espadrille throwing (kicking off the foot) competition and various strong-arm activities such as a good ol’ tug-o-war.

Meanwhile, the Basque culinary experience has place of honor at the festival, with Basque chefs from Paris, Basque Country and elsewhere participating, bringing with them the culinary essentials of the southwest corner of France where the Pyrenees fall into the Atlantic: the cheeses, hams, peppers, octopus, plancha, Izarra, Egiaski and “apple wine.”

The chefs present over the weekend may go all-Basque for their festival fare, but in their restaurants, they cook well beyond regional folklore.

I recently met with two of the participating chefs at their restaurants in Paris to discuss the Basque influence in their cuisine and their participation in this year’s Paris-Basque festival: Thierry Dufroux of Bistrot Belhara in the 7th arrondissement and Mathieu Moity of Iratze in the 11th arrondissement. Both men grew up in Bayonne. Dufroux’s family moved there when he was 10; Moity was born there.

Neither Bistrot Belhara nor Iratze serves “regional” cuisine. In fact, these are distinctly Parisian restaurants, the former a modern bistro, the latter home to knowingly instinctive gastronomy. Yet both chefs pride themselves on their use of Basque products and on the influence of their home regio. Their Basqueness, whether subtle or more pronounced in a dish, is precisely what distinguishes them from more ordinary attempts within their respective restaurant categories.

Both chefs deemed it important to present their attachment to their Basque roots in the names of their restaurants. Bistrot Belhara is named for the tremendous waves that sometimes surge towards the Basque Coast near Saint Jean de Luz, recalling Dufroux’s own affection for surfing and echoing the rush that you will hear in his voice in the video interview below. Iratze is the Basque word for a type of fern, a plant Moity encountered frequently when exploring the forest with his grandfather. He speaks of the fern as a constant plant, secure in its roots as it spreads out. “It’s a beautiful image of what I can be and what my restaurant can be,” he said.

Thierry Dufroux at Bistrot Belhara

It seems that every visitor to Paris seeks out “a little neighborhood bistro, not too expensive, just nice and friendly.” Bistrot Belhara fully fits the bill. It is a modern bistro in that Thierry Dufroux does not work within a circumscribed traditional bistro menu yet maintains a sense of quality, freshness, reasonable pricing (under 40€ for a 3-course meal) and urban heartiness (including a gluten-free dish). Generous of spirit, the cuisine strikes a delicious a balance between rustic and refined. Situated in a well-heeled quarter near the Invalides, this 40-seat restaurant combines the tiled floor and wooden furnishing of a traditional bistro with elegant grey walls and an Art Deco ceiling. A string of red peppers hangs from a pillar at the center of the restaurant. The oak bistro tabletop, visible at lunchtime, is covered with a white tablecloth for dinner service. Two frontmen, Frédéric Clemence and Christian Bignaux, work the room like a polite vaudeville team.

In this interview with Thierry Dufroux, in French, you can hear the rush of his passion about his work and about Paris-Basque.

Mathieu Moity at Iratze

Mathieu Moity’s cuisine is dynamic, personal and shifting. He jumps on occasions to use Basque products without closing himself into the region. Located a side street between Bastille and République, Iratze is an ambitious eatery that Moity, along with partners Yann and Afrae Brasseur, who work the front of the house, and Didier Feuillet, opened at the end of 2016. Open only in the evening, the atmosphere depends on the combined spirit of its three spaces: the little tapas bar to the front, the restaurant per se in the middle, the chef’s table in the back. While friends on stools share tapas (4-17€ per plate) and sip Charles’s cocktails, comfortably seated diner enjoy a 3-course meal (44€) and guests at the 10-seat chef’s table (any number up to 10 can reserve) partake in a 9-step tasting (68€). Moity’s restless yet rooted sense of gastronomy is fronted by the upbeat and resolutely 30-something room staff (Yann and Afrae, Charles at the bar, Australian sommelier Jess).

Mathieu Moity explains Iratze, his cuisine, his Basque roots and the atmosphere at Paris-Basque in this interview, in English.

Don’t expect either Thierry Dufroux or Mathieu Moity to be walking around their restaurants with a Basque beret and a rugby ball. But when it comes time for the Paris-Basque festival tradition is de rigueur.

Other Basque chefs

Other Paris-based chefs present at Paris-Basque this year include Sébastien Gravé (Pottoka), Yves Camdeborde (Le Comptoir du Relais Saint-Germain), William Pradeleix (Will, Raw), Olivier Amestoy (Axuria) and Philippe Tredgue (Auberge Etchegorry), along with chefs working in Basque Country (Lionel Elissalde, Jean-Bernard Hourçouigaray, Ramuntxo Courdé, Cédric Béchade, Pascale Etcheverria, Christophe Grosjean) and elsewhere in France (Stéphane Carrade, Steven Ramon)

Bistrot Belhara, 23 rue Duvivier, 7th arr. Metro Latour Maubourg or Ecole Militaire. Tel. 01 45 51 41 77.

Iratze, 73 rue Amelot, 11th arr. Metro Chemin Vert or Bréguet Sabin. Tel. 01 55 28 53 31

Paris-Basque, 8 quai Saint-Exupéry, 16th arr. Metro Porte de St. Cloud or RER Boulevard Victor. Entrance is free.

© 2017, Gary Lee Kraut

If planning visit to Basque Country consider these articles about Biarritz on France Revisited.

Information about the Basque region can be found on the region’s official tourist office website.

The post Paris-Basque: Bistrot Belhara, Iratze and Paris’s Basque Festival appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Bordeaux intends do it. Already on the map—and now increasingly so for Americans thanks to its cheery cycling PR—the city is now planning its own beacon of a museum, the Cité des Civilisations du Vin, dedicated presenting the pairing of wine with culture and with civilization, on the drawing board for 2016.

Between the two there’s Biarritz, a thick dot on the map ever since Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugenia began vacationing here in the 1854 (see this Biarritz Hotels article for more history). But for long-distance travelers the Biarritz brand is no longer as evocative as Bilbao or Bordeaux

In the early 1990s, I remember, Biarritz was all the rage for European-minded Americans who’d heard of the luxurious Hotel du Palais, the renovated aquarium, the particularity of Basque culture and an airport that only the best travel agents knew about. As a playground for surfing, golf and runs on the beach and as a destination for seawater therapy, Biarritz didn’t need a major museum to call attention to itself.

Well aware of the intense competition for the short attention span of those long-distance traveler (the one who counts if you want to fill your tax coffers and create a few jobs) and the absence of high-tech or research companies (the ones who count if you want the national government to take notice), the powers that be—first among them Didier Borotra, mayor since 1991—thought it was high time to rebuild the Biarritz brand. And so about a decade ago they began toying with the idea of declaring Biarritz a resort town—and why not a business-friendly town, too—with a special relationship with the ocean: think Biarritz, think ocean; think ocean think Biarritz: Biarritz Ocean, for short.

The project came to fruition with the restoration and expansion of the town’s aquarium, le Musée de la Mer (the Sea Museum), and the creation of a new museum la Cité de l’Océan (Ocean City), both inaugurated in 2011.

Musée de la Mer, the Aquarium

Biarritz now has one of France’s largest aquariums. American visitors may have seen larger, more kid-friendly aquariums, complete with live dolphin shows and high-sensation films.  Despite the feeding of the seals and of the sharks, there’s less showmanship here. Nevertheless, the Sea Museum does indeed echo the town’s relationship with the Atlantic Ocean.

Facing the sea in a stylish Art Deco building of 1933 that was renovated and expanded in 2011 as part of the Biarritz Ocean project, the museum-aquarium follows the Gulf Stream in its presentation of a Caribbean lagoon, sharks, seals, rays and barracudas, while also presenting examples of life in the Indo-Pacific region.

East Coast Americans like to claim the Gulf Stream as their own, as it follows the hurricane track from the Caribbean to Maine, with a Canadian afterthought while passing by Newfoundland, after which it disappears from our maps and minds. Yet its current and climatic influence continue on the other side of the ocean where the North Atlantic’s wide river branches north toward Ireland and Scandinavia and south toward Africa.

As a grown-up destination Biarritz and the surrounding Basque Country has much to offer in terms of culture, food, sports and romance, and a fascinating cross-cultural trip could include Spanish Basque Country (Bilbao et al.). Yet the town and its surrounding also offer a nice backdrop for family fun, and the aquarium is a part of that.

Cité de l’Ocean

Another part of that is the Cité de l’Océan, the major project of Biarritz’s reinforced relationship with the ocean.

The building, designed by the American architect Steven Holl in collaboration with the Brazilan Solange Fabiao, takes the form of a simple wave unfurling toward the beach, with life visible under the swell, i.e. underground. It’s an easy metaphor though not exciting architecture.

Unfortunately, the wave building sinks unobtrusively in the landscape 500 yards from the beach and a long mile from the center of town, so it takes some effort getting to and from. An argument can be made for taking a healthy walk along the beach to get there, but it’s an argument that few will buy into, opting instead for one’s rental car, a taxi or the regular bus service from the aquarium. As a vote for the bus route, combining the aquarium with the Cité de l’Océan is the most direct way to get into the spirit of Biarritz Ocean.

Through interactive exhibits in French, Spanish and English, 3D films and daily activities, the Cité de l’Océan informs about various aspects of the oceans and our relationship with it: origins, tides, waves, myths and legends associated with the ocean, the evolution of life-forms (with the whale as the prime example) and the weather (visitors “ride” a boat through a storm).

Early on in the town’s reflections on a new museum a decade ago there were voices in favor of devoting it to surfing, then to incorporating surfing as a secondary aspect. But by the time it opened surfing appeared as minor afterthought, with only a small portion devoted to the sport, which is something of a shame given Biarritz’s history with surfing, not to mention my own surfing lesson (as told here).

The museum largely targets a family audience with children 7 to 13 years old, though older children and adults have much to learn here. It’s a natural complement to a visit to the aquarium, which can appeal to all ages. At the Cité de l’Océan I found myself interested though not impressed, entertained by not enthralled. A more sensational interactivity would help, but it is indeed informative if you pay attention. They have managed to keep the museum from being “chiantifique,” loosely meaning boring science, but haven’t quite made a thrilling museum either inside or out. Nevertheless, presenting the high stakes of climate change, biodiversity, over-fishing, the effect of a heavily populated coastline, the need to creating drinking water by desalinization and the acidification of the ocean was never going to be as sexy as a photogenic piece of contemporary art à la Bilbao or a museum explaining how Europe owes its existence to wine à la Bordeaux.

The museum is far from being an international calling card. Though most of its eggs are currently in the tourism basket, Biarritz (population 30,000 and home to 10,000 secondary residences) still aspires to attract research and production companies involved with the ocean. This has yet to materialize. Whether Biarritz can indeed develop its brand association with the ocean remains to be seen.

Nevertheless, Biarritz’s attempts to getting mileage from its historical relationship with the ocean are not far-fetched; though less evocative than Bordeaux’s relationship with wine, it has more historical basis than Bilbao did with contemporary art two decades ago. There’s still room for the project to develop.

Meanwhile, the Cité de l’Océan does have a nice enough restaurant, Le Sin, in its favor.

For the international traveler, these museums remain are secondary to the overall attraction of Biarritz. The town’s major assets are its exceptional site and all it has to offer in terms of sports, spas, a daily food market and the weather. You don’t need museums to enjoy that, but it’s nice to know they’re there in case you’ve brought along the kids or in case it rains.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

Biarritz Océan is the umbrella title for the Musée de la Mer Aquarium and the Cité de l’Océan. The museums are open daily except Mondays  November to March (open Mondays of French school vacations during those months). Closed the three middle weeks of January. Joint tickets are available for the two museums. The Cité de l’Océan is free for children under 6; the aquarium is free for children under 4.

For more on Biarritz on France Revisited read: Biarritz: The Surfing Lesson and Biarritz Hotels.

Official site of the Biarritz Tourist Office: http://tourisme.biarritz.fr/en

Getting to Biarritz: There are direct flights to Biarritz from Paris and other French cities as well as from various northern European capitals (London, Dublin, Copenhagen, Brussels, Rotterdam, Stockholm). By train, Biarritz is 5:20 from Paris and 2:00 from Bordeaux.

The post Biarritz Ocean: The Brand Between Bilbao and Bordeaux appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

Joël de Ronay pushes me from behind by the pool at the Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz.

“You’re goofy-footed,” he says when I fall forward on my right foot.

“Is that good or bad for my future as a surfer?” I ask.

“That depends on you. You’ll see tomorrow,” he says.

But I suspect that time is not on my side, not just because I’m over 50 but because I’ve only signed up for a 90-minute surfing lesson the following morning.

Mr. de Rosnay, on the other hand, has been surfing since before I was born. He is a celebrity in surfing circles, one of the pioneers of the sport in France—indeed in Europe. He first took board to wave in the summer of ’57 when surfing first took off on the shores of the continent, starting right here at Biarritz. Now in his 70s, Mr. de Rosnay still looks as though he could as confidently ride the waves as he can address an audience about the relationship between man and the ocean and between technology and the environment. We’d been discussing those relationships (the real reason for my visit to Biarritz) before I mentioned tomorrow’s surfing class (the reason for this text).

A brief history of surfing on the Basque coast

Surfing was well on its way to becoming a pop culture phenomenon in California when, in 1956, a couple of Californians recognized the potential of the waves along the Basque coast while here to make the film adaptation of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, which was being partially shot along the beaches of Biarritz. Peter Viertel, the screenwriter, and Darryl Zanuck, the film’s director, could largely only admire the waves from the beach since there were no suitable surfboards to be had. Returning in 1957, Viertel brought over his own boards, one of which he lent to Joel de Rosnay, a young man from Paris then on vacation in Biarritz. They were soon joined by others and news began to spread that a new sensational sport had arrived.

The first French championship took place here in September 1960, with Mr. de Rosnay crowned as champion. The following year the first European championship was held on these bikini-clad shores. Mr. de Rosnay placed fourth, but more significantly, that event affirmed Biarritz’s place as the European capital of surfing and, when wind of the championships reached California, put the town on the map for American surfers seeking thrills in Europe.

Biarritz had had a British connection ever since British aristocracy learned in 1854 that Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugenia were building a palace (eventually transformed into the Hotel du Palais) overlooking the beach. Now, a century later, it had an American connection beyond the Hollywood set. (Just as it took over 40 years from the creation of the imperial palace before Queen Victoria visited in 1899, it took over 40 years from the initiation of surfing in Biarritz for the Beach Boys—well, at least Mike Love an Bruce Johnston—to play here in 2001.)

In 1963, an international championship, won by Australia’s Peter Troy, was held a few miles north of Biarritz at the mouth of the Adour River.

By the end of the decade, T-shirts, Bermuda shorts, Frisbees, skateboards and shortboards had arrived along with Flower Power and Volkswagen buses. Within another decade the business of surfing had taken firm hold in Biarritz and the sport was claiming waves all along France’s Basque coast and north along the coast of the Landes (Hossegor, Lacanau). Meanwhile, kamikaze surfers began to gather round the campfire to tell stories of monster waves at Le Furoncle, just north of Biarritz, at Vanthrax, near the Spanish border, and about rare 30-foot swells 1½ mile from the coast at Belharra, just south of Biarritz.

Surf school

For my part, I head out the following day to confront the waves at the Plage de la Côte des Basques, where it all began.

Waves, however, may not be the word for what I confront this exceeding calm morning: 12-inch swells tumbling over to form a line of foam not even high enough to knock over a 3-year-old. In fact, the 3-year-olds are already surfing.

The baby of our group of five newbies is in her late 30s. You’re never too old to learn, I suppose, but you can be too claustrophobic to zip up a wet suit. I’m nearly prepared to call the whole thing off, but a couple passing by on the beach just then gives me the up-and-down with a smile that makes me think maybe that I look ménage-à-trois sexy in the tight suit.

I then reread their up-and-down and realized that it goes from the words on my chest (Biarritz Surf Training) to the height of my surfboard, longboard that looms over my head, and that their smile is at best one of pity. Anyway, I forget the strangling wetsuit and carry my board to join the others on the sand.

The Bay of Biscay as it washes against portions of the coasts of France and Spain can be too moody in some parts to be associated with smooth sailing, backstroking and first-time surfing. But Biarritz’s coastline is known for the consistency of its surf, making it a fine place for beginner and intermediate surfers, especially from May to early October when the water temperature is sufficiently warm. There are often also plenty of more unruly waves for experienced surfers both at Biarritz and north and south along the Basque coast.

The town’s historic focal point, however, is less the beach than the rocky outcrop at the center of the town’s coastline, where the striking Art Deco aquarium and the old port are. The outcrop is surrounded by tremendous boulders, possibly hurled by the gods to instill fear in the hearts of inhabitants tempted to search for Atlantis, which is somewhere out there.

In 1864, on one of the rocks resembling an overturned boat, locals sought to assuage that fear by planting a statue of the goddess Mary. An iron foot bridge, built by Gustave Eiffel’s company to replace an earlier wooden bridge, leads out to the Rock of the Virgin and no promenade in Biarritz is complete without crossing it.

That rocky outcrop separates the two central stretches of beaches: la Plage de la Côte des Basques to the south and la Grande Plage and la Plage Miramar to the north. The Hotel du Palais overlooks the central portion of the northern stretch, between la Grande Plage and la Plage Miramar.

My surfing lesson on the Plage de la Côte des Basques is with Philippe Beudin, director of Biarritz Surf Training, one of nine surfing schools in Biarritz.

It’s a beautiful morning, already 80 degrees and on its way to being a springtime scorcher.

“A perfect day for a first lesson,” Mr. Beudin announces to the five of us in the class.

We are all excited. The class looks longing toward the water but Mr. Beudin keeps us on the sand, where we practice standing up on boards, trying to memorize steps that undoubtedly come naturally to kids.

Born in 1962 and a native of Biarritz, a Biarrot, Mr. Beudin grew up at a time when surfing was finding firm footing as a sport of freedom on this coast. But he didn’t seriously take up the sport until his late teens, meaning in the early 1980s, the period in which surfing grabbed hold as a mass market sport in these parts. He has since traveled far and wide with his board, naturally including Hawaii, before returning home to create his surfing school.

We eventually take our longboards into the water until we are about waist deep, where the waves don’t break so much as push a pile of foam toward the shore. Mr. Beudin’s instructions are clear, patient and encouraging, yet none of us manages to stand up on our boards. I try not to feel past my prime when a six-year-old glides by and waves. But little by little we all make progress. My hour in the water goes something like this:

Foot forward, fall… foot forward, fall… foot forward, fall… push up, fall… foot forward, fall… push up, fall… push up, fall… half-stand, fall… foot forward, fall… push up, fall… half-stand, fall, drink seawater… half-stand, fall… stand, fall… stand, fall… half-stand, fall… stand one second, fall… stand two seconds, fall… and finally: stand one, two, three, four, five, si-, fall—a magnificent ride on a foot-high wave. Cowabunga!

Several hours later I cross paths with Joël de Rosnay again while having lunch at Le Sin, the restaurant at the Cité de l’Océan (described in the next article in this series to be posted this week), a museum dedicated to the ocean. Seated with a group of well-dressed lunch companions, this is clearly not an aging beach bum but rather a successful consultant and entrepreneur.

Indeed, for Mr. de Rosnay surfing wasn’t so much a lifestyle as a trampoline from which he followed his interests and opportunities in a varied career that has led him to make his name in the various fields of sports, technology, food and the environment. Surfing may have been his early attraction to visiting the United States but it was far from his last, as his CV includes a stint as research associate at MIT in the field of biology and computer graphics and Scientific Attaché to the French Embassy in the U.S. He currently serves as the president of Biotics International, a consulting company specialized in the impact of new technologies on industries. He is the author of books on his various fields of interest and expertise and has most recently published Surfer la vie: comment sur-vivre dans la société fluide (Surfing through Life: How to sur-vive in Fluid Society).

I reintroduce myself as the fellow he pushed by the pool yesterday. I tell him briefly about my first surfing experience, a story he’s certainly heard a thousand times.

“It’s a start,” he says.

He asks how I like the museum.

I say the same thing.

I ask to take his picture and he obliges.

That afternoon I decide to stay in Biarritz an entire week to learn how to surf.

I imagine the days ahead: morning lessons with Philippe Beudin, a chat with my favorite Basque merchants at the daily morning food market,

… an excursion to Saint Jean de Luz, then back to Biarritz to meet new-found surfing buddies for dinner at La Plancha or for a sunset picnic on the beach,

… and eventually attacking three- and four-foot walls by the end of the week.

It isn’t actually a decision. It’s a travel fantasy before flying home at the end of the day.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

For more information about Biarritz on France Revisited read: Biarritz Ocean: The Brand Between Bilbao and Bordeaux and Biarritz Hotels.

Official site of the Biarritz Tourist Office: tourisme.biarritz.fr/en.  The tourist office a second site dedicated specifically to surfing: surf-biarritz-paysbasque.com/en/.

Biarritz Surf Training, 102 rue de Pierre Chevigné, 64200 Biarritz. Tel. 05 59 23 15 31. www.surftraining.com. Open April to November. See website for pricing for 1-10 lessons and for intensive or leisure weekend or week-long lessons/training. Surfboard (or bodyboard) and wetsuit included. Philippe Beudin, director.

Reservations of several weeks in advance are recommended for surfing lessons in July and August, but for much of the rest of the surfing season little advance planning is necessary. The seasons runs April to early November, with ideal time being the long spring days from mid-May (when the water has warmed a bit) through June and in the often very pleasant back season of September and October.

Philippe Beudin has teamed up with the local Alliance Francaise for a combined surfing and language vacation, with French language lessons in the morning and surfing in the afternoon, so that on returning home you can impress your friends not only with your surfing skills but also with your Basque accent.

A list of all of the surfing schools of Biarritz can be found here.

Other sports in Biarritz

Surfing isn’t the only sport for which Biarritz and the French Basque coast are known. Long before the Californians arrived with surfboards the British were coming with golf clubs. The Golf de Biarritz Le Phare dates to 1888, making it old enough that it’s now surrounded by city. The International Training Center at the Golf d’Ilbiarritz is south of the city. There are also nine other greens within a 20-mile radius. As a sign of the importance of golf here, Biarritz has been linked as a sister city with Augusta, Georgia since 1992.

More indigenous is Basque pelota (pelote basque), played in a variety of ways, whether barehanded, with racket/paddle or with a basket-type racket.

Finally, southwest France is rugby country and Biarritz’s team, Biarritz Olympique Pays Basque (BOPB or simply BO) is a premier league team. The season runs mid-August to early May, followed by three weeks of playoffs.

Then there’s the great sport of spa treatments and seawater cures (thalassothérapie) for which Biarritz is also well know. Thalassotherapie is practiced at two centers: Thalassa Biarritz at the Sofitel Biarritz Le Miramar and Thalmar, directly accessible from the Hotel le Biarritz. Hotel du Palais, the town’s most luxurious hotel, has a beautiful spa called The Imperial Spa (with Guerlain).

Getting to Biarritz

There are direct flights to Biarritz from Paris and other French cities as well as from various northern European capitals (London, Dublin, Copenhagen, Brussels, Rotterdam, Stockholm). By train, Biarritz is 5:20 from Paris and 2:00 from Bordeaux.

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Hotel du Palais
Imperial Resort and Spa
1 avenue de l’Impératrice, 64200 Biarritz.
Tel. 05 59 41 64 00. Website.

You don’t need a 5-star budget in order to enjoy the pleasures of the French Basque coast, but if you’ve got one then there is only one place to use it: Biarritz’s Hotel de Palais, the classically luxurious, exceptionally situated and overall outstanding seaside palace.

The history of this hotel has been inseparable from that of Biarritz ever since 1854, when Emperor Napoleon III, gave his nod to the construction on this site of a summer palace, Villa Eugénie, named for his wife.

It was she, Eugénie de Montijo, born into Spanish aristocracy but raised mostly in France, who was so fond of Biarritz, having first visited at age 9, in 1835. (While Eugenia was particularly fond of Biarritz, Napoleon III had a warm spot for Vichy [see article http://francerevisited.com/2009/07/vichy-not-that-vichy-this-vichy/], as did his mistresses.)

The imperial couple’s visit to Biarritz in the summer of 1854 got them hooked on the beauty and warmth of the Basque coast, and Villa Eugénie was ready to receive them on their visit the following year. For the next 16 years, with the exception of 1860 and 1869, they sojourned, bringing with them a train of aristocracy—French, first, then from throughout Europe. “La reine des plages et la plage des rois,” Biarritz was called: The queen of beaches (beach resorts) and the beach (beach resort) of kings.

The crowned heads barely took pause with the Franco-Prussian war and the fall of the emperor, as Biarritz remained one of France’s most notable resorts during the Belle Epoque. It was a period that saw Villa Eugénie transformed into a hotel and casino. Russia’s grand dukes came for the season; Queen Victoria saw fit to visit and then so did Edward VII and many more. Much of the hotel-casino burned down in 1903, after which it was largely rebuilt as the luxury hotel seen today. You’ll see the initials NE around the hotel referring to Napoleon Emperor or, if you prefer, to Napoleon and Eugenia.

The Hotel du Palais has the particularity among France’s top crop of hotels of belonging to the City of Biarritz and of nevertheless being well managed, apparently, by a semi-public (mixed economy) company. The rooms are of classic luxury with pretty little contemporary touches.

The hotel has a pool, a fine restaurant, bar, direct access to the beach and a spa. A fine place from which to enjoy a moody sunset.

The spa (Guerlain products) covers five floors and is brightly lit by natural sunlight. In addition to the pool and other amenities to which clients have free access, the spa offers soins that are “cocooning, personal and intimate” along with a Leonor Greyl hair institute.

Café de Paris
5 place Bellevue, 64200 Biarritz.
Tel. 05 59 24 19 53. Café de Paris is part of the HMC group of hotels and resorts. Website.

This sweet and sober 4-star boutique hotel with an easy-going décor of gray, white and splashes of color is ideally situated at the crux of the Grande Plage, with a remarkable view from all 19 rooms of the length of the beach and out to the lighthouse. A short walk in other directions leads to covered food market, the old ports and the promenade over the rocks. The hotel itself has a worthwhile restaurant.

Hotel Windsor
Grande Plage, 64200 Biarritz.
Tel. 05 59 24 08 52. Website.

The Hotel Windsor, owned and operated by the Heguy family since 1948, is also a 4-star. It’s a notch less notable than the Café de Paris but also a notch less expensive. Half of its 48 rooms overlook the crowds of the beach (la Grande Plage). The rooms are simply decorated—bright white walls and furnishing, striped bed covers, dark wood floors; pleasant if not exuberant. There are some nice rooms on the courtyard and others on the side with a sliver of a beach or ocean view, but of course the full frontal view is preferable. There are a few reasonably priced family rooms for those traveling with young children.

Edouard VII
21 avenue Carnot, 64200 Biarritz. Tel. 05 59 22 39 80. Website.

With 18 rooms housed in a 19th-century mansion, this family-operated 3-star hotel feels like a large B&B: cozy, a touch of charm, a nice place from which to feel at home in the city and to chat up other guests. The Edouard VII isn’t as close to the beach as the others mentioned here, but it’s only a short walk (about 350 yards) to the Plage de la Côte des Basques, Biarritz’s longer and less citified beach. Another way of looking at it is that when staying here you can reach either beach on a short walk, and the covered food market, which is the center of local life in the morning, is just 200 yards away.

Room size increases slightly from one category to the next though the more noticeable difference is the increase in bed width—140 cm/55 in., 160 cm/63 in., 180 cm/71 in. There’s a fourth category: a family room suitable if traveling with small children. In the warmer seasons breakfast can be served on the terrace.

Mercure Plaza
10 avenue Edouard VII, 64200 Biarritz. Tel. 0559247400. Website.

A handsome, 69-room, 3-star chain hotel with an admirable Art Deco heart, the Mercure Plaza is well set just a block off the beach, across the street from the casino and a fine place from which to set out on a promenade in any direction.

When to visit: A visitor naturally wants warm weather and warm (at least not cold) water when visiting Biarritz, and that naturally means visiting from mid-spring to mid-autumn. Nevertheless, Biarritz is a worthwhile off-season destination, when you may well luck upon some warmish sunny days between October and March. Furthermore, as with all seaside resorts, off-season pricing can be up to half that of the high season.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

For more on Biarritz on France Revisited read: Biarritz Ocean: The Brand Between Bilbao and Bordeaux and Biarritz: The Surfing Lesson.

Official site of the Biarritz Tourist Office: http://tourisme.biarritz.fr/en

Getting to Biarritz: There are direct flights to Biarritz from Paris and other French cities as well as from various northern European capitals (London, Dublin, Copenhagen, Brussels, Rotterdam, Stockholm). By train, Biarritz is 5:20 from Paris and 2:00 from Bordeaux.

The post Biarritz Hotels: Hotel du Palais, Café de Paris, Windsor, Edouard VII, Mercure Plaza appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

But of course… there’s a lot of duck… and where’s there’s duck, there’s foie gras. You can buy it and bring it home, or you can sink into a comfy chair during lunchtime, order a big glass of Basque wine, and set about devouring a generous 16€ platter of two home-made regional terrines, rillettes au foie gras, duck sausage, and a little magret séché for good measure. Purists opt for a hefty slab of duck or goose liver without any trimmings except for toast.

The Basque region is also known for its seafood, so there’s southwestern style cod-potato brandade, 10€, or smoked-salmon/tarama platter, 20 €, for the non- birdwatcher. But we were there for duck, and although it was difficult to pass up a deep dish of scrambled eggs smothered with cèpe mushrooms, 10€, we chose the old-fashioned duck stew, 12€. After Chef Laurie Cleradin simmers it for two days in a lush broth (with added carrots and onions), the lean meat simply melts in the mouth. It makes boeuf bourguignon seem to taste like yesterday’s news.

All the produce is “imported” from the region and that includes a variety of wines by the glass from 3 to 6 €. We liked the Cuvée Heïta, a golden white from the Domaine de Moncaut in the Pyranées Atlantiques that’s rich enough to stand up to the stew. And of course, there’s Izarra, Armagnac….

But before the digestive save room for dessert. Céline Castellan serves one of southwest France’s truly mythical desserts, the gateau russe cream cake that Adrien Artigarrède invented in the hamlet of Sainte-Marie-Oléron (30 Kilometers south west of Pau) in 1925. She gets the cake directly from that original bakery. (For homesick Basques, this is akin to having a direct line on butter beer for Hogwart’s alums.)

What’s so Russian about gateau russe? One of the key ingredients for the cake’s crust is almond powder which, in the 1920s, it had to be imported from Crimea. The rest of the ingredient list? That’s been a jealously guarded secret for four generations.

Canard & Co. 192 rue de Grenelle, 7th arrondissement. Tel: 01 45 5194 73. Metro Latour Maubourg or Ecole Militaire. Lunch Monday through Friday; grocery open Monday through Saturday from 10 am to 7:30 pm and Sunday from 10 am to 2:30 pm.

Note: Canard and Co. will soon be giving classes in preparing foie gras! Call the shop for details.

© 2013, Corinne LaBalme

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