Short post today, I’m afraid. I’m dividing the Biarritz trip into three sections: Biarritz itself, EPIC HIKE OF DOOM, and St-Jean-de-Luz, partly because the hike was so gorgeous that I have about 50 pictures of it and partly because I don’t have enough time to write all three as one. So today is Biarritz proper, which we got to using a pre-dawn 6-hour trainride from Paris. (By the way, as I discovered on the way, Coldplay's Viva la Vida, or Death and All His Friends is the perfect soundtrack for traveling by train across the French countryside at Sunrise, especially "Life in Technicolor". Just in case you're ever looking for something.)
I am moving here after I graduate. There are some flaws, yes: it’s kind of rustic-and-yet-touristy, and it’s kind of a very small town despite being a resort “city”. But it’s also right on the beach, the mountains are a half hour away, it’s warm even in late September, and it’s in Basque country so there’s always work for an anthropologist. It was just absolute gorgeous, and I fell in love with it in a way that I haven’t yet with Paris. In three days. (It’s the water, I tell you. I can never resist water.)
Speaking of which, here’s the ocean and lighthouse. The photo doesn’t do it justice: the water was this unbelievable shade of blue.
Here’s a shot of the beach. That building all the way to the right is a casino.
This rock was the coolest thing. When we went back to the beach that night, I went up and looked at it (low tide) – there was a natural stair spiraling halfway around. I was in a skirt with no shoes and it was dark, so I didn’t climb it, but it was so cool. This shot might also give you an idea of the waves: unbelievable. We had to swim out beyond the crests in order to not drown when they came through: if you couldn’t make it over the top before it broke or get far enough under them that you weren’t in their pull, you’d be held down until the next one came, and you’d only have a second to get a breath. But it was fantastic, if exhausting.
Isn’t it pretty?
It feels like a fairy tale, or something. That bridge looks like it’s made out of sand. (Also, at low tide, the water retreats out of that pool behind it and it’s all a sunken mass of rock and seaweed. Very cool. I DID climb that part – at that point I’d spilled Nutella on my skirt anyway.)
What the bridge was leading to.
When I took this picture, I thought this staircase was kind of whimsical and silly – a stairway into the sea! For selkies and mermaids! – but at low tide, this is all flat-packed sand extending about a quarter-mile out. So cool to walk on at night: with the darkness, and the water all around, and the island up above, you feel like you’re in another world.
Pretty church. I don’t know if it’s just the location, but it kind of looks like a sandcastle to me.
Pretty little boats all lined up in their pretty little harbor.
There are lots of hills here, for such a small town. Most of them have been built on; this one was built under (there’s a tunnel for the road).
Window to the sky. And a man who needs to put his shirt on – dude, if you’re already pink and you’re still in the sun, it’s gonna hurt.
We didn’t get the chance to walk out here, and I wish we had. But we were on a mission.
A close-up of the walkway and the statue titled Rocher de la Vierge (“rocher” means “rock”).
A smaller, more sheltered beach, safe for the kids. No less nudity, though.
And when I move to Biarritz, this is where I’m going to live. Right?
And this was our destination: the chocolate museum. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, so let me just say that on that trip I ate and saw so many sweets that I couldn’t eat chocolate for a week.
That night we went to dinner all together at a Basque restaurant, which basically means “practically Spanish”. There was bullfighting on the television. We were all sitting there going, “Really? Now?” But the food was fantastic, and we all ate so much that we really needed the hike the next day, even if it was really long and we were utterly misled. But more on that later.
I took this on the run after we got out of the restaurant. The detail is terrible, but the colors are right, and the colors were what I really wanted to capture.
After dinner, we went down to the beach, ran around on the sand, and admired the lighthouse against the night:
(I couldn’t decide which I liked better. They’re very different effects.)
And, coming up soon, the next day’s hike!
I am moving here after I graduate. There are some flaws, yes: it’s kind of rustic-and-yet-touristy, and it’s kind of a very small town despite being a resort “city”. But it’s also right on the beach, the mountains are a half hour away, it’s warm even in late September, and it’s in Basque country so there’s always work for an anthropologist. It was just absolute gorgeous, and I fell in love with it in a way that I haven’t yet with Paris. In three days. (It’s the water, I tell you. I can never resist water.)
Speaking of which, here’s the ocean and lighthouse. The photo doesn’t do it justice: the water was this unbelievable shade of blue.
Here’s a shot of the beach. That building all the way to the right is a casino.
This rock was the coolest thing. When we went back to the beach that night, I went up and looked at it (low tide) – there was a natural stair spiraling halfway around. I was in a skirt with no shoes and it was dark, so I didn’t climb it, but it was so cool. This shot might also give you an idea of the waves: unbelievable. We had to swim out beyond the crests in order to not drown when they came through: if you couldn’t make it over the top before it broke or get far enough under them that you weren’t in their pull, you’d be held down until the next one came, and you’d only have a second to get a breath. But it was fantastic, if exhausting.
Isn’t it pretty?
It feels like a fairy tale, or something. That bridge looks like it’s made out of sand. (Also, at low tide, the water retreats out of that pool behind it and it’s all a sunken mass of rock and seaweed. Very cool. I DID climb that part – at that point I’d spilled Nutella on my skirt anyway.)
What the bridge was leading to.
When I took this picture, I thought this staircase was kind of whimsical and silly – a stairway into the sea! For selkies and mermaids! – but at low tide, this is all flat-packed sand extending about a quarter-mile out. So cool to walk on at night: with the darkness, and the water all around, and the island up above, you feel like you’re in another world.
Pretty church. I don’t know if it’s just the location, but it kind of looks like a sandcastle to me.
Pretty little boats all lined up in their pretty little harbor.
There are lots of hills here, for such a small town. Most of them have been built on; this one was built under (there’s a tunnel for the road).
Window to the sky. And a man who needs to put his shirt on – dude, if you’re already pink and you’re still in the sun, it’s gonna hurt.
We didn’t get the chance to walk out here, and I wish we had. But we were on a mission.
A close-up of the walkway and the statue titled Rocher de la Vierge (“rocher” means “rock”).
A smaller, more sheltered beach, safe for the kids. No less nudity, though.
And when I move to Biarritz, this is where I’m going to live. Right?
And this was our destination: the chocolate museum. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, so let me just say that on that trip I ate and saw so many sweets that I couldn’t eat chocolate for a week.
That night we went to dinner all together at a Basque restaurant, which basically means “practically Spanish”. There was bullfighting on the television. We were all sitting there going, “Really? Now?” But the food was fantastic, and we all ate so much that we really needed the hike the next day, even if it was really long and we were utterly misled. But more on that later.
I took this on the run after we got out of the restaurant. The detail is terrible, but the colors are right, and the colors were what I really wanted to capture.
After dinner, we went down to the beach, ran around on the sand, and admired the lighthouse against the night:
(I couldn’t decide which I liked better. They’re very different effects.)
And, coming up soon, the next day’s hike!
1 comment:
I've always been strangely pulled to water as well. I blame it on living in a landlocked city where the nearest body of water is like 3-5 hours away. Anyway, when I went on a tour of the coast in Northern Ireland I was entranced by the water as well, so I know how it is. Keep up the awesome pictures, please!
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