It gives me a cheap thrill to think that you’d start reading this article in order to discover—with admiration or contempt—which towns and cities in France limit their cooperation with the national government in enforcing immigration laws. You might be imaging a bistro where lawless lefties confront national thugs. Or a wine region where baguette-wielding winegrowers are protecting grape-picking Syrians and Somalis against soldiers in riot gear. Would you then be inclined to visit such a place? Or would you immediately despise it?

How exciting to think that a travel article of mine could be read with admiration or contempt. But at the risk of disappointing anyone, and of ruining my chances of this piece launching a lengthy Reddit thread, let’s have another look at that title.

Villes Sanctuaires en France, the network in question, translates as Sanctuary Cities in France. The words align. But the concept does not. There are no trumped-up stand-offs in these towns and cities. French authorities have indeed stepped up operations to net undocumented migrants and would-be immigrants who’ve overstayed their visa, including a few gently reminded post-Brexit Brits. But round-ups, deportation and resistance are unlikely to occur in the peaceable destinations in France’s Villes Sanctuaires network. What makes them like-minded is a different kind of sanctuary.

Here, sanctuaire refers to a sanctuary in the sense of a shrine, “a place in which devotion is paid to a saint or deity,” to quote Merriam-Webster. Villes Sanctuaires en France therefore brings together villages, towns and cities in France that have shrines—Catholic, at that—that can be visited by the general public.

But wait, wait!

Before clicking away because candle-lighting pilgrims are less Instagrammable than baguette-wielding winegrowers, let me tell you one of my favorite aspects of travel in the secular nation in France: You can just as easily visit these sanctuaries and shrines for the heck, the fun, or the creepiness of it—I do—as you can out of a sense of spirituality, hope or devotion—others do. You can visit them, as I do, out of pure curiosity, out of an in interest in history or architecture, and to observe how people visit shrines. Or don’t visit the shrine at all when in these sanctuary cities, because the municipalities mentioned here also pay tribute to the gods of beauty, construction, gastronomy, wine, nature, even meaning, whatever that may mean. And here’s the best part: respectful as we must be when visiting a shrine that doesn’t speak to us spiritually, we don’t have to fake adoration, because blasphemy is not a crime in France. Praise be!

For the 18 municipalities within the Villes Sanctuaires network, the shrine or sanctuary is only half the picture. The site’s pious handlers work in tandem with local tourist officials, who also seek to promote other aspects of tourism within the municipality and in the surrounding region. Each member-municipality tells a different story in which the spiritual retreat or Catholic pilgrimage site or otherwise sanctified structure can lead to explorations regarding other heritage sites, gastronomy, wine, hiking, and nature—or vice versa.

France today is a secular state not a Christian or Catholic country. Its culture is a mixed bag that doesn’t stem from the history of a once-dominant religion. Yet the history of Christian, particularly Catholic, dominance in France has left major physical markers. Among them, a fascinating, photogenic and/or curious variety of heritage sites that the traveler is invited to encounter. Christianity’s religious and political history in France also includes a record of harms, dangers and abuses that are also worth examining. Thankfully, one is no longer forced to or expected to honor religiously inspired historical sites or the shrines of these sanctuary cities in specific ways, yet all are accessible to visitors whatever one’s views. By contrast, travelers are highly unlikely to visit a synagogue or mosque or temple if they don’t identify with the associated religion. Even travelers who do identify rarely visit those, whereas the vast majority of non-Catholics visitors to France will enter a church. Think Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral.

Pilgrims and wayfarers, reverent and irreverent

For the purposes of this article, let’s use both portions of Merriam-Webster’s definition of a pilgrim: 1: one who journeys in foreign lands: wayfarer. 2: one who travels to a shrine or holy place as a devotee.

The Villes Sanctuaires en France network was created in 1994, not as a direct promotional tool so much as a way for municipal tourist officials and overseers of shrines and sanctuaries to exchange information and learn from each other regarding the welcoming of religious and non-religious pilgrims. Only recently, in December 2025, did the association hold its first organized press workshop.

The event took place in Paris at the religious guest house attached to Sacré Coeur Basilica in Montmartre. Entrance to the hotel is from behind the basilica on a street named for the Chevalier de la Barre. The chevalier was a nobleman who was arrested then tortured and executed in 1766, at the age of 20, because he vandalized a wooden crucifix and failed to take his hat off when a religious procession went by, along with other impious, blasphemous acts. He immediately came to be seen as a secular martyr for the Enlightenment against the dangers of religious intolerance of Church and its bedmate State. Laws today sanction those who incite hate and violence, whether with respect to religion or other matters, while the Chevalier de la Barre remains a symbol of the right to irreverence with respect to something some consider sacred.

It isn’t at all ironic that the street near the Catholic holy site is named after the ill-fated young fellow. Instead, the street was baptized in honor of la Barre at a time when Sacré Coeur was under construction, during the political tug-of-war between Catholic and anticlerical forces in France. While the church rose with one vision of French society, the naming of the street and a statue to la Barre (located in what is now a dog park nearby) were intentional reminders of changing social priorities.

Together, the street and the church, the young nobleman and the devout pilgrim, the charming grey cobblestones and the massive white dome, coexist today as attractive reminders of how travelers—whatever kind of pilgrim they may be, whatever reverent or irreverent thoughts they may have—can experience, learn from and share it all.

The Sanctuary Cities network naturally plays the spiritual card in promoting tourism—unless it’s the tourist card in promoting spirituality—but these villages, towns and cities needn’t be seen as religious destinations alone. Whether you consider yourself a religious pilgrim or a wayfarer in a foreign land, or both at once, or sometimes one, sometimes another; whether you’re a theist (aficionado of a god that does or doesn’t act on human affairs) or a nontheist; whether you go in for blasphemy, heresy, dogma, or the smell of incense; whether you consider yourself spiritual or not; whether you wish that this article had been about deportation or resistance, now that you’ve come this far in, stay with me as I present the 18 current members of the network of Sanctuary Cities in France.

Municipalities in the Sanctuary Cities network vary from world-renown destinations to little-known village.

Among the most famous of these Sanctuary Cities is Lourdes, a town of 13,800 whose shrines attract 3 million visitors per year. Lourdes is primarily known as a spiritual destination relative to sainted Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1879), who is said to have had 18 sightings of Mary from February to July 1858. Personally, I’ve little curiosity about Bernadette herself, but the spirit moves me to visit Lourdes soon so as to witness the Bernadette phenomenon up close and because Lourdes makes for an excellent starting point for exploration in the Pyrenees. There’s a visitable fortress just above the town. A funicular goes to the summit of the Pic du Jer. Further from town, another funicular goes to the even more impressive summit of the Pic du Midi, and there are numerous trails for hiking expeditions in the region. (Stay tuned for my 2026 Lourdes article.)

The photogenic tidal island of Mont Saint Michel is another major destination among these Sanctuary Cities.

While you don’t need to carry an all-knowing deity in your thoughts to be curious about the place, I encourage all travels to delve into the fascinating religious, architectural, technological and geopolitical history of the site, whether through reading or by hiring a specialized local guide, even if only to understand the successive eras of construction on the mount, culminating with the 13th-century portion known as “the Marvel.” I suspect that, unlike visitors to Lourdes, only a small percentage of the millions who come each year to Mont Saint Michel is aware that the mount maintains an active Catholic community—the men and women of the Monastic Fraternities of Jerusalem. In the village and hard to spot among the souvenir shops and pricey omelets, the House of Pilgrims is a sanctuary for visitors who seek churchly hospitality.

Nevers, population 33,000, is located on the edge of two major travel and touring routes and receives relatively few foreign visitors. It’s on the inner edge Burgundy but without vineyards to draw wine travelers, and it’s the starting point for the 415-mile Loire by Bike route but cyclists largely pedal along paths further downstream. Religious pilgrims, however, know Nevers as the place to marvel at the body of Bernadette of Lourdes. Why aren’t her remains in Lourdes to greet the 3 million visitors there? Because Bernadette of Lourdes joined the Sisters of Charity and lived her short life as a nun in Nevers, where she died at the age of 35. Personally, I’m not planning a trip to Nevers just for that, though I do soon expect to take in the embalmed sight. I’ll also check out the Ducal Palace, have a peek in at the earthenware museum, find a potter to visit, and seek out a lively bistro or good restaurant. I enjoy the sense of discovery of exploring a bypassed town with an eclectic mix of offerings with an eye to encountering something or someone that sparks my interest. (Again, stay tuned for an upcoming article.)

Further south in Burgundy, Paray-le-Monial’s Sacré Coeur (Sacred Heart) Basilica represents Romanesque architectural splendor to Catholic and non-Catholic visitors alike. The former may specifically come to embrace their sense of the Sacred Heart. It was in this town that Margaret-Marie Alacoque claimed to have had three visitations from Jesus from 1673 to 1675, revealing his heart and its meaning to her on the third. The basilica therefore welcomes a significant influx of religious pilgrims. They may or may not also be gastronomic pilgrims, interested in Charolais beef. Charolais is common in much of France but the massive Charolais breed of cattle has its origins in this region and is named for the town of Charolles, eight miles east.

Spirituality needn’t be the main draw of a town or city in the sanctuary network. Wine can be the magnet, at least it is for me when I think of Cahors, which stands out in the wine world as the primary home for malbec in France. Whether you prefer your wine blended, blessed or 100% malbec, or don’t drink at all, no visitor venturing this deep into the country would skip the city’s key heritage sight: the 900-year-old Saint Etienne (Saint Stephen) Cathedral. Within the bowels of the cathedral awaits the Holy Headdress, venerated as the supposed head covering placed on Jesus as he was wrapped in a shroud for burial. Some will stand before it in awe and adoration. Others will raise an eyebrow, shake their head, and think “Oh, the things that people will believe.” But all visitors check it out. Beyond the malbec, the cathedral and the old town, it is the House of Pilgrims at the convent of Vaylats that gives Cahors sanctuary status and provides hospitality for hikers on the Way of Saint James of Compostela.

Sometimes the distinction between religious and non-religious pilgrim-tourists is blurred because they’re all following the same path. That’s the case at Rocamadour, one of the most visually stunning of these Villes Sanctuaires due to way the village hugs the canyon wall. Rocamodour is just over an hour’s drive north of Cahors or east of Sarlat. Visitors of all stripe climb the 216 steps to the sanctuary, then gaze upon the Black Virgin, a little statue with a large reputation.

Brive-la-Gaillarde, just over an hour’s drive north of Rocamadour, is better known for its rugby team than for its caves of Saint Anthony of Padua. But there it is, a sanctuary dedicated to the patron saint of all things lost and found.

Many trains to Bayeux and the D-Day Landing Zone of Normandy stop in the sanctuary town of Lisieux. Looking out the window as the train approaches the station, you see an immense basilica on the hill, its architecture inspired by Paris’s Sacré Coeur. The basilica honors Thérèse Martin (1873-1897), better known as Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. I’m not suggesting that any but the most Teresian travelers take time from their brief tour of the Landing Zone to visit Lisieux, but it’s nice to know what you’re looking at as you pass by on the train.

Teresa’s sainthood marks much of the lower half of Normandy. Her devout parents, the canonized couple Louis and Zélie Martin, lived in Alençon, and their shrine there brings that town into the fold of Sanctuary Cities. Alençon is, however, better known in knitting circles for its lace-making history, as presented in its Lace Museum.

Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer’s annual pilgrimage in May attracts Romani from throughout Europe and tourists from far and wide into the Camargue Regional Park. Yet for most visitors, it’s the natural sensations of its marshes and bottomlands that set the Camargue apart along the Mediterranean.

Most foreign travelers would be surprised to learn that the Loire River, which evokes royal chateaux and easy-going biking along its east-west flow, starts deep in an off-track area of southern France and builds up strength on a northerly flow. Le Puy-en-Velay, population 19,000, in the Haute-Loire (Upper Loire) department, is the first city along the river’s course. Its geographical location and the presence of an ancient shrine to Mary earned it a major place on the map for medieval pilgrims arriving from the east and northeast on the Way of Saint James. Le Puy’s Notre-Dame Cathedral, its monumental statue of Notre-Dame de France, and its nearby volcanic chimney topped with a chapel round out its major Christian sights. But a foreign traveler is unlikely to come here unless interested in exploring the striking natural surroundings of this former volcanic region.

The sanctuary village of Souvigny also has a remarkable Romanesque church, along with the history of the first house of Bourbon—Bourbon as in future kings of France not corn whiskey. Souvigny is a 15-minute drive from the city of Moulins, home to the National Costume Center.

Then there are a handful of more obscure sanctuary villages and towns in the network: Lalouvesc, a remote village in Ardèche; Ars-sur-Formans, which sits quietly between the Beaujolais vineyards and Lyon; Cotignac in the backcountry of Provence; Sainte-Anne-d’Auray in Brittany; Vendeville near the northern tip of France, and La Salette, at nearly 6000 feet in the Alps. Non-religious pilgrims visiting the sanctuaries and shrines there will especially find the opportunity to commune with nature in various shapes and forms in the surrounding area.

See the official site for this network of sanctuary cities for more information about the shrines, sanctuaries, and points of interest of all kinds in and near these villages, towns and cities.

© 2025, Gary Lee Kraut

The post A Traveler’s Guide to Sanctuary Cities in France appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The curators of France have sports on the brain. I imagine hundreds of them gathering in a post-Covid funk at a convention at the Louvre two or three years back, trying to come up with ways to attract visitors to their museums. Suddenly, a specialist in, say, 18th-century stockings, a graduate of the class of 2008 at the Institut National du Patrimoine, stands up and shouts, “Eureka! Forget about the 150th anniversary of Impressionism in 2024, let’s all plan shows about sports to coincide with the Paris Olympics!” There follows a standing ovation and a buzz that spills over to the Champagne reception and evolves into an orgy of ideas for the Olympic crossover into cultural exhibitions in museums and other venues. Now, 2, 3 years later, dozens of sports-related exhibitions have blossomed throughout France. And you can visit all of them for less than the cost a nosebleed seat at a second-round match of beach volleyball at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The official map of Olympic and Paralympic sporting venues also presents sports-related cultural and event locations throughout France.

Here is a selection of major and minor exhibitions in Paris and various regions of France during this Olympic year.

A Selection from France’s Cultural Olympiad

Paris’s fashion museum, the Palais Galliera, gets into the act with Fashion on the Move #2, presenting 300 items that “explore the role of special clothing in physical and sports activities as well as the sociological factors reflected in its development.” From horseback riding to tennis to golf to bicycling, along with much sea bathing and swimming, visitors can examine “the gradual specialization of sports garments and the arrival of sportswear in people’s ordinary everyday wardrobe.” This exhibition, running until Jan. 5, 2025, follows on the heels of the first Fashion on the Move show, which pranced along similar ground.

The Pantheon in Paris, that impressive and vital church-cum-monument-to-the-ideals-of-the-French-Republic, hosts until September 29 the exhibition Paralympic History: From Integration in Sport to Social Inclusion, 1948-2024.

The Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris presents the 1930s work of André Steiner. See the video below for a brief description and glimpse of André Steiner: The Body, from Desire to Transcendence, showing until September 22.

Also in Paris, sport and urban cultures form the raison d’être of Spot 24, a temporary exhibition space and Olympics shop located a 10-minute walk west of the Eiffel Tower. In a series of corporate-hip displays, the exhibition showcases six new or recent Olympic disciplines: BMX freestyle, skateboarding, sport climbing, surfing, 3×3 basketball and breaking. Until Dec. 31.

The National Sport Museum in the Allianz Riviera Stadium in Nice needs no Olympic theme to work up a sweat. Still, it would be remiss in not mounting an Olympic-related temporary exhibition. The result is Les Elles des jeux, which examines the place of women in the Olympics over the past 130 years. It runs until September 22.

In Lyon during the month of August, the regional CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) presents at the Parc de la Tête d’Or an exhibition called Sport et Science: L’union fait la force (strength through unity), examining, among other aspects, how science benefits professional and amateur athletes.

In Burgundy, the MuséoParc Alésia looks at the Olympic Games of Antiquity in Ô Sport, des Jeux pour des dieux (the Games for the gods) https://www.alesia.com/o-sport-des-jeux-pour-des-dieux/, along with a separate exhibition titled Archeology and Sport, both until November 30. The museum-park, created at the site of a major battle between Roman legions and the Celtic tribes that inhabited Gaul prior to the Roman conquest, is located 35 miles northwest of Dijon by car (or a quick side-trip while biking along the Canal de Bourgogne).

In Toulouse, the southwestern city known as “the European capital of aeronautics and space,” the title of the exhibition at the Cité de l’Espace (Space City) is unsurprisingly Space and Sport. Showing until the end of the year, it highlights the similarities between top-level athletes and astronauts.

Bordeaux naturally sought a wine angle. Whether its convincing or not (haven’t been), the Cité du Vin has mounted an exhibition that finds a connection between life in the stadium and work in the vineyards and the common challenges facing both athletes and winegrowers. Whatever. Showing until September 29.

In the Alsatian city of Sélestat, the Humanist Library, which hosts notable exhibitions related to its extensive collection of medieval manuscripts and 15th- and 16th-century printed books, presents En garde ! L’escrime, entre fiction littéraire et réalité historique (fencing, between literary fiction and historical reality). June 27 to November 10.

In addition to being well off the radar of most travelers, the Centre Historique Minier, a museum about the history of mining built on the site of an old mine in Lewarde (Upper France), 27 miles south of Lille, would appear to have a tough time finding a sporting angle. It nevertheless manages to jump on the Olympic bandwagon by exploring how mine owners, beginning in the mid-19th century, saw sports and sporting clubs as a way of structuring the free time of their employers and families with activities and a social framework that could be beneficial for their cohesion and physical fitness. The sporting exhibition continues until May 4, 2025.

La Fabrique des Savoirs, the Knowledge Factory, in Elbeuf (Normandy) is an eclectic museum dedicated to all kinds of knowledge and know-how, particularly relative to nature, archeology and industry in and around the loop in the Seine upstream from Rouen. Sports enters mix this summer with the exhibition De l’usine au stade (from the factory to the stadium), June 21 to Sept. 29, which tells about the development of sports and sporting facilities in the area from 1870 to today.

(Contemporary) Art & Sport

Art & Sport is the unambiguous heading for 13 exhibitions of contemporary art taking place at various times from May to November in 13 cities representing the 13 regions of metropolitan France.

Considering what are often thought of as two distinct audiences—the artistic and museum-going public on the one hand and the sporting and sport-going public on the other, the former considered elitist in opposition to the latter often seen as “the people”—the national cultural organization GrandPalaisRMN is supporting an array of exhibitions intended to bring contemporary art to those who don’t usually enter museums. The venues for these exhibitions are therefore sports facilities and outdoor event spaces.

A good example of the concept is an exhibition that recently closed in Nevers (Burgundy) titled Hand in Hand in Hand. Taking place at a local sports center used by the Nevers handball team, the show considered the place of the hand and the sense of touch in contemporary art. A handball stadium may seem like an unlikely place to draw a substantial audience until you consider that handball is a major sport in France. In fact, in a rare Olympic double, France’s men’s and women’s handball teams both won gold three years ago at the Tokyo Olympics.

Through to the end of June in Mulhouse (Alsace), the theme of color in contemporary art is examined at an exhibition titled Pop Up Play Polychrome, showing at the Mulhouse Climbing Center. Why there? As an echo to the colors of the climbing walls.

In Pau (New Aquitaine), in June and July, the city’s aquatic center houses the exhibition How to Whisper to the Ocean. Water is naturally the common element in works that explore with drama, poetry and humor the concept of voyages to places foreign, unknown and/or subject to climate change.

In Le Mans (Western Loire), time is the theme of the works presented at the track of the 24 Hours of Le Mans races. It’s a short exhibition, lasting only June 11 to 16, the week of the Hypercar race.

The theme of the storm will draw the eyes of visitors at the Old Port in Marseilles from June 30 to July 3.

From July 5 to September 2, the impressive equestrian center in Saint Lô (Normandy) is the venue for works on the theme of animals, with an African proverb leading the way: If an animal tells you he can speak, he’s probably lying.

The works presented from September 7 to 29 at Nîmes‘s skate park, France’s largest, will explore street life.

In Paris, from July 12 to September 9, multiculturalism is the umbrella theme at the Maison de la Conversation in the 18th arrondissement. What does conversation have to do with sport? Well, as anyone who has taken part in café culture in Paris well knows, conversation is the primary sport in the capital city, though dodging cyclists is well on its way to overtaking it. Furthermore, one of the main conversations among Parisians for many months now has been Olympic fatigue, even before the Games begin.

For the full schedule and description of (contemporary) Art & Sport exhibitions, see here.

© 2024, Gary Lee Kraut

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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.

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