France Updated Aug 2026
At high tide, the sand at Biarritz’s Côte des Basques disappears beneath the Atlantic, leaving surfers to wait above the seawall while waves strike the cliffs. That tide-made vanishing act captures the city’s character: part old whaling port, part imperial seaside theater, part serious surf town. Biarritz, France, rewards visitors who look past the grand façades and listen for the Basque rhythm underneath.
Photo: Daniel J. Schwarz / Pexels
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Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie turned a small coastal settlement into a courtly retreat in the 1850s, leaving behind the rose-red Hôtel du Palais, the tiled Chapelle Impériale, and villas built for Russian princes, couturiers, and restless aristocrats. The Hôtel du Palais still carries imperial bees in its entrance carpet, a tiny emblem of how much ceremony once gathered around this stretch of ocean.
The city’s daily life is less polished and more delicious than its palaces suggest. At Les Halles, fishmongers, bakers, and charcutiers work from early morning; by late morning, counters fill with Bayonne ham, Ossau-Iraty and black cherry jam, gâteau basque, and glasses of local wine, while the streets around Rue des Halles turn toward pintxos and cider after 6:30 p.m.
Biarritz changed European surf culture in 1956 and 1957, when filmmaker Peter Viertel brought the sport to the Côte des Basques while filming The Sun Also Rises. Yet the city’s older relationship with the sea remains visible at the Port des Pêcheurs, where brightly painted crampottes serve grilled sardines and chipirons beneath cliffs once used to watch for whales. Seen this way, Biarritz is not simply a resort beside the Atlantic; it is a town repeatedly remade by whoever arrives from the water.
Not every monument, just the ones we'd walk you past ourselves.
Where to wander, by quarter — each with its own rhythm.
Before you go
A fishing settlement remade by emperors, war, and Atlantic waves
Worked stone tools found on Biarritz’s clifftops and coastal terraces point to Middle Paleolithic habitation, perhaps around 100,000 BCE. Wind, salt, and open sightlines made these high shelves useful long before hotels and promenades altered the shore.
Foundations uncovered on the Atalaye promontory point to a Roman presence on the coast. The same high ground later carried a medieval fortress and whalers’ lookout, so Biarritz’s famous view began as a practical military asset.
A document generally dated to 1023 gives the settlement the Basque or Gascon name Bayarrits, the earliest written form tied to Biarritz. In 1152, Eleanor of Aquitaine’s marriage to Henry Plantagenet brought Labourd under English suzerainty, beginning roughly three centuries of Plantagenet rule.
Authorities in Labourd and the Duchy of Aquitaine reaffirmed Biarrot fishermen’s rights to hunt whales after disputes with Bayonne. Harpoons, rendered blubber, and whale oil supported the small port, while lookouts on the Atalaye watched for dark backs beyond the breakers.
A royal charter dated May 26, 1342, allowed Biarrots to carry and sell fresh saltwater fish directly in Bayonne. The same record mentions Château de Belay, or Ferragus, a four-towered English fort with a drawbridge above the harbor.
French forces took Bayonne and Labourd between 1451 and 1453, ending English rule along this coast after the Hundred Years’ War. Biarritz now answered to the French Crown, though its boats, markets, and speech kept their Basque character.
Henry IV’s letters patent of 1603 confirmed Château de Ferragus as an observation and defense post. After most of the fortress vanished, its surviving tower carried a daymark by 1739, a signal against the reefs of the Bay of Biscay.
Road improvements between Bayonne and Biarritz in 1765 made sea bathing easier for visitors arriving from inland. In 1767, magistrate Malesherbes praised the ocean’s therapeutic effects, helping turn salt water from a fisherman’s workplace into a fashionable prescription.
The Revolution abolished Labourd as a historic province in 1790 and placed Biarritz in the new Basses-Pyrénées department. Administrative borders changed; the surf, fishing coves, and Basque speech did not.
Biarritz’s lighthouse began operating in 1834 on Pointe Saint-Martin, where the sandy Landes coast gives way to the rockier Basque shore. Its tower rises 73 meters above sea level, and 248 steps lead through the salt-bright interior to the lantern.
Eugénie de Montijo first visited Biarritz in 1835 with her mother, years before she became Empress of the French. She remembered the coast’s light and dunes; after her marriage, that affection would draw an imperial court to the town.
Victor Hugo visited in 1843, when Biarritz was still a small whaling and fishing port. He admired its greenery and sea air, then warned that fashion might make the village hideous—a complaint the future seems to have treated as a building brief.
In 1854, Napoleon III bought nearly 50 acres of coastal dunes facing the Grande Plage for a summer residence for Eugénie and their court. His decision shifted Biarritz’s economy toward palaces, roads, and imperial display; the sand itself became valuable real estate.
Villa Eugénie rose in 1855 in Second Empire style, its red-brick and pale-stone façade facing the Atlantic. The imperial family returned for many summer seasons, drawing European royalty, diplomats, and an expensive new clientele behind them.
Prussian minister Otto von Bismarck visited Napoleon III in Biarritz in October 1862 for talks that touched the balance of power in Europe. Behind the palace’s polished rooms, diplomacy moved through cigar smoke, sea wind, and calculations about German unity.
A statue of the Virgin Mary was installed on the Rocher de la Vierge in 1865. Local tradition says it honored whalers who survived a violent gale, and the white figure still faces the boats as if keeping watch over the Bay of Biscay.
In 1881, a 75-meter metal footbridge linked the mainland to the offshore rock. Records and local accounts attribute the work to the Schryvers workshops in Hautmont, although popular retellings often attach Eiffel’s name to it.
The Russian Orthodox Church of Saint Alexander Nevsky was consecrated in 1892 for the Russian aristocracy vacationing on the coast. Its domes and incense-filled interior gave Biarritz’s resort society a distinctly eastern courtly accent.
Villa Eugénie reopened as the Hôtel du Palais in 1893 after Empress Eugénie sold the property to a private consortium. The former summer residence became a hotel where imperial memory was folded into room keys, dining rooms, and Atlantic-facing balconies.
Fire gutted the Hôtel du Palais on February 1, 1903, tearing through its roof and interior. Édouard-Jean Niermans rebuilt and enlarged it in an E-shaped plan for Eugénie, turning disaster into the palace’s Belle Époque silhouette.
In 1915, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel opened her first couture house at 2 avenue Édouard VII, serving wealthy clients displaced or sheltering during the First World War. Biarritz’s seaside ease suited the looser clothes she was beginning to cut, far from the stiff etiquette of an imperial ballroom.
Pablo Picasso spent the summer of 1918 in Biarritz with Olga Khokhlova, staying at the villa of art patron Madame Errázuriz. He painted beach scenes and bathers influenced by the coast, including work associated with the lighthouse, while Europe was still at war.
The Art Deco Casino Municipal opened on the Grande Plage in 1929, as the old luxury economy struggled through the Great Depression. The Musée de la Mer followed in 1933, putting aquariums, sea creatures, and ocean science behind a façade above the Rocher de la Vierge.
German troops entered Biarritz on June 27, 1940, requisitioning hotels and the Parme airfield. Concrete bunkers, coastal guns, and tunnels then threaded the shore as part of the Atlantic Wall, giving holiday architecture an abrupt military underside.
On March 27, 1944, American B-24 Liberators dropped roughly 44–45 tonnes of bombs aimed at Parme airfield and Latécoère factories, but drift sent much of the raid over Biarritz. Between 117 and 145 civilians died, 375 houses were destroyed, and about 1,200 people lost their homes; the target was damaged, too.
French Resistance fighters and Allied units liberated Biarritz on August 24, 1944, as German forces withdrew from southwestern France. In 1945–46, the former resort hosted Biarritz American University, where more than 10,000 U.S. servicemen took university courses while waiting for demobilization.
In 1956, American screenwriter Peter Viertel brought a Californian surfboard to the Côte des Basques while visiting for The Sun Also Rises. He left the board behind, and local riders such as Joël de Rosnay and Georges Hennebutte turned an imported curiosity into a durable Biarritz culture.
The Hôtel du Palais received France’s official Palace distinction in 2011, joining a small group of top luxury establishments recognized beyond the five-star rating. Its imperial bees, grand staircases, and rebuilt E-shaped plan now carry a modern business: selling the memory of Napoleon III’s summers.
Biarritz hosted the 45th G7 Summit from August 24 to 26, 2019, with meetings at the Hôtel du Palais and Bellevue Casino. Security closures reached across roads, beaches, and the sea, briefly turning the resort into a guarded diplomatic compound.
From October 23 to 29, 2022, Biarritz hosted the World Pelota Championships, bringing about 600 athletes for 18 medal disciplines. The crack of balls in the courts reasserted a Basque sporting tradition beside the town’s more famous surfboard.
Empress · 1826–1920
Villa Eugénie commissioned for her in 1855
Empress Eugénie made Biarritz her Atlantic retreat when Napoleon III commissioned Villa Eugénie for her in 1855. The rose-red palace still faces Grande Plage; she might find its life as a hotel an odd but pleasing afterlife for a private summer house.
Emperor · 1808–1873
Acquired land and built Villa Eugénie in Biarritz
Napoleon III acquired land in Biarritz in 1854 and built the imperial couple’s seaside residence, turning the town into a courtly summer address. He would recognize the palace and shoreline today, though the surfers below Grande Plage might seem less obedient than his imperial guests.
Where locals actually book dinner — not the tourist menus.
Basque pintxos are small, carefully assembled bites served at market counters and nearby bars, often held together with a toothpick. Go late morning, when the market smells of coffee, warm bread, fish, and peppers, and pair them with a local glass of wine.
This Basque pastry is built from tender, buttery dough with either pastry cream or black-cherry filling. Try both versions if you can; the cream is soft and vanilla-scented, while the fruit gives the pastry a darker, sharper edge.
Small squid, usually grilled or cooked simply, arrive with a gentle char and a faint sweetness from the sea. The crampottes at Port des Pêcheurs are the natural setting, especially when the harbor lights begin to catch on the water.
Fresh sardines grilled over high heat are one of the port’s plainest pleasures: smoky skin, oily flesh, and the Atlantic just beyond the tables. Order them at the fishermen’s harbor rather than in a polished dining room.
This sheep’s-milk cheese from the Basque Country and Béarn is firm, nutty, and gently grassy. At Les Halles, try it with black-cherry jam, the sweet-tart partner that makes the cheese taste even more pastoral.
Air-cured Jambon de Bayonne has a clean saltiness and a soft, almost silky texture. Buy a few thin slices at Les Halles for a picnic, preferably with crusty bread and something sharp enough to cut through the richness.
The AOP pepper from Espelette brings warm, fruity heat rather than a blunt burn, and it appears across Basque cooking in sauces, stews, and cured meats. Look for strings of dried peppers or jars of powder in market stalls and specialist food shops.
Irouléguy is a small-production wine from the inland Basque Country, made in red, white, and rosé styles. Its local connection makes it a better harbor-side pour than a generic house wine, especially beside grilled fish or chipirons.
Small things that change how the city treats you.
The city, as it actually looks.
Yes, especially if you want Atlantic beaches, Basque food, surf culture, and a concentrated dose of imperial history. The center is compact enough to explore on foot, while Bayonne, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, and the Spanish border make easy regional outings.
Plan on 3–5 days for Biarritz and a few nearby coastal towns. Three days covers the lighthouse, Rocher de la Vierge, market, beaches, and a proper pintxos evening; five allows time for surfing, cycling, or Bayonne and Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
Take TXIK TXAK bus 3 or 4 from Biarritz Pays Basque Airport; the ride to downtown takes about 10–15 minutes. Tickets are sold at terminal machines, and contactless cards can be tapped aboard; a taxi to central Biarritz usually costs about €15–€25.
Yes, and a car can be more trouble than help in the center. Biarritz is compact and walkable, free electric shuttles serve central beaches and car parks, and TXIK TXAK’s T1 links Biarritz with Anglet and Bayonne in under 30 minutes.
A TXIK TXAK single ride costs €1.30–€1.40, while a day pass costs €3.80 and a 3-day pass €8.70. Contactless payment caps fares at €3.70 per day after three rides, making it useful for sightseeing across the urban area.
Yes, Biarritz has low violent-crime levels and is generally safe for solo visitors and families. Keep an eye on bags around Les Halles, Port Vieux, and crowded promenades, and treat ocean conditions as the bigger risk.
May and September–October offer the best balance of mild weather, usable surf, and lighter crowds. July and August are the warmest and driest months, while November is the wettest, averaging 171 mm of precipitation.
Yes, but only in the supervised zone and when the flags permit swimming. The beach can vanish completely at high tide, and strong currents and shorebreaks make tide checks essential before descending the stairs.
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