Grande Plage

The Grande Plage is the central beach of Biarritz, on the French Basque coast a few kilometres from the Spanish border. It is a short crescent of golden sand beneath the town, with the casino at one end and the Hôtel du Palais at the other.

It has two distinct histories. The first is imperial: Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III, built a summer villa here in 1855 — now the Hôtel du Palais — and the European aristocracy followed, turning a whaling village into a resort. The second began in 1956, when an American screenwriter brought a surfboard to shoot a film nearby; the wave here is the reason surfing entered Europe through this town, and Biarritz has been its European capital ever since.

The shore is fine golden sand facing the Bay of Biscay, which delivers Atlantic swell reliably and heavily. Sandbanks shift and the break changes through the season; in autumn the waves are large enough to draw competition. Rip currents are a standing feature and the beach is patrolled in season with flagged swimming zones. The water is cooler than the Mediterranean and warmer than the Channel.

Development is a compact town rather than a strip: Belle Époque and Art Deco architecture immediately behind the sand, a promenade, a lighthouse on the northern headland, and the Côte des Basques a short walk south, which is the beach the surfers actually use and which disappears entirely at high tide. The town is small enough to walk end to end in half an hour, and the three beaches differ sharply: Miramar north of the Grande Plage is quieter, and the Côte des Basques south of it is where the surf schools work and where the sand vanishes at high water.

Surfing entered Europe on this sand in 1956, brought by a Hollywood screenwriter who had a board shipped over. Before that it was Eugénie's resort and the architecture still says so. The Bay of Biscay has real swell and real rips, the flags are enforced, and the water is nineteen degrees at its best.