MARK WOLDIN
Basque Country Tour Guide
To book a tour, call or email:
(+34) 660-976-422 Mark@BasqueTouring.com
Biarritz and Bayonne
Biarritz is a spectacularly beautiful coastal town, a chic playground for Parisians in the summertime, with high-end shopping and a bohemian surf scene as well. For the French who no longer care for the Côte d’Azur, Biarritz is the place.
 La Grande PlageHotel Palais (Napolean III's summer palace) overlooks the rugged Grande Plage, a serious surfing beach with a gorgeous long promenade. |  |
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 Tents Look Out to the LighthouseOne can see in 19th Century paintings by the impressionists and post-impressionists the same tents for bathing hiding from the sun. The Rocher de la Vierge is seen far off, as is the lighthouse, which dates to 1834. |  |
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Bayonne is very different from Biarritz although only ten minutes away. It is bigger, more emphatically Basque, and more historically rich. Its cathedral is grand, the Saint Esprit neighborhood was a refuge to Jews after the great Expulsions of 1492 (Spain) and 1494 (Portugal) and, not coincidentally, the birthplace of France’s chocolate industry. There is also a five-day festival in the summer.
One finds good restaurants, bars and bistros, and a first-rate food market where one can slurp oysters and sip wine at a banc de huîtres.