Biarritz, FR

The best seafood restaurant at the Port des Pêcheurs (fishermen's harbour) in Biarritz, and the one that has earned that status rather than just holding the most conspicuous terrace. The kitchen handles Atlantic turbot, sole meunière and plateau de fruits de mer without gimmickry — this is fish from the boats at the dock below you, cooked simply. Lunch in summer with the sun on the harbour is the version of this meal to aim for.

A pintxos and tapas bar just opposite the covered market at Les Halles, with one of the longest-running pintxos counters in the French Basque country. The anchovy toasts, the gildas (olive-anchovy-pepper skewer) and the pimientos de padrón are the things to order before anything else. It is narrow, standing-room-heavy and thrumming by 7:30pm, which is precisely the point — no reservations, no fuss, just wine and pintxos.

A restaurant perched above the Côte des Basques surf break on the Boulevard du Prince de Galles, with a terrace that puts you almost at wave height. The menu reads seasonal and Atlantic-leaning — grilled fish, Basque-accented salads, good rosé — but the location is the genuine draw. You are watching the surfers from the same cliff the surf scene in Biarritz is built around, and the sunset from this terrace on a July evening is the right way to end a beach day.

A specialist foie gras and South-West French produce shop-restaurant right at the covered market, where the menu anchors around duck and goose preparations alongside excellent Basque charcuterie. The foie gras mi-cuit en terrine with Espelette pepper is the signature — straightforward, serious and exactly what you should be eating in the Basque hinterland. Good for a long lunch before or after the market.

A contemporary Basque bistro in the Halles quarter, named after the curved wicker basket used in Basque pelota, where an art-deco-styled room and a regional menu that changes often put the accent on the Atlantic: oysters and shellfish, house pintxos, bouchot mussels at lunch and whatever fish came in that morning. It runs from a morning café through to a proper evening table, a few steps from the covered market, and the Sunday omelette has its own following.

The historic Basque patisserie-chocolatier that has been in Biarritz since 1895, famous for its Muxu (the chocolate-almond macaroon-style confection that is the Basque answer to the Parisian macaron) and its gâteau Basque filled with black cherry jam or pastry cream. The Biarritz shop sits on Place Bellevue a few steps from the Casino, and walking in and buying a box of Muxus is one of the most genuine things you can do here. Do not confuse the gâteau Basque here with the flabby supermarket versions — this is the thing itself.

In the old town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, in a 16th-century stone house on a cobbled lane, Le Kaïku has held a Michelin star while remaining the kind of restaurant where you feel like you've been let in on something rather than sitting in a destination kitchen. The menu follows the Basque fishing calendar — tuna season in late summer, hake in winter — and the wine list is one of the finest for Txakoli and Irouléguy in the whole area. Worth the 20-minute drive from Biarritz.

The most buzzing of the Port des Pêcheurs terrace restaurants, where the crowd is younger and louder and the food is Basque tapas rather than plated fine dining. Anchovies, grilled prawns, chipirones, tartare de thon — it is the menu of the harbour, and eating it with a cold Txakoli overlooking the fishing boats is about as good as Biarritz casual dining gets. Reservations are not really the culture here; turn up early and you'll get a seat.

A Bayonne-founded chocolate house that is the serious rival to Pariès in the Basque chocolate tradition, with a roasting workshop at their Bayonne factory and a retail-tasting shop in Biarritz. The house does single-origin bars, ganaches with Espelette pepper and fleur de sel, and Basque black cherry confections that justify every minute of a detour. The Biarritz boutique is the right place to taste before buying; the factory tour in Bayonne is worth booking if you have kids.

Inside the Biarritz casino building facing the Grande Plage, this is the brasserie that holds the most coveted terrace breakfast real estate in the city. Proper café au lait, croissants from a local bakery, fresh-squeezed juice and the full beach spread in front of you at 8:30am before the crowds arrive. It is the reliable all-day spot when you don't want adventure — French brasserie classics done properly in the best possible location.

The coastal path that runs along the cliff tops south from Biarritz's Côte des Basques beach through the village of Bidart and onward toward Guéthary — 8 kilometres of some of the most dramatic Atlantic coastline in France. The path hugs the edge of eroding red sandstone cliffs with open sea to the west and the Pyrenees to the southeast. The section from the Côte des Basques parking lot to Bidart village takes about two hours at a relaxed pace and can be returned on the Chronoplus bus back to Biarritz.

La Rhune (905m) is the sacred peak of the Basque people, visible from all of the coast, and the 1924 rack railway that climbs it from the Col de Saint-Ignace is one of the great slow-travel experiences of southwest France. The 35-minute train ride through fern moorland and over bridges puts you on the summit where Spanish and French Basque country both spread below you — and a herd of Pottok ponies graze free on the summit plateau. You can walk the descent through the ferns to the col in about 90 minutes.

A pocket pinewood between Biarritz and Anglet, just north of the city, where a 7-kilometre circuit loops through maritime pines above Lake Chiberta and comes back along the dune edge at Anglet's surf beaches. It is the easy flat-to-gentle walking option within 10 minutes of Biarritz — good for an early morning run, a bike ride or a dog walk with a beach finish. The lake hides behind the dunes and most visitors never find the interior circuit.

The village of Espelette, 25 minutes inland from Biarritz, is the home of the Espelette pepper (piment d'Espelette) — the mild red pepper with AOC status that is the defining spice of Basque cooking. In autumn the facades of every house hang with strings of drying red peppers in a colour that has become the village's signature. A morning circuit of the village, the church, the old château and the market takes 90 minutes; the market on Wednesdays sells peppers, Basque saucisson and artisan cheeses.

Biarritz's coastal path system connects all the way to the Spanish border at Hendaye, and the final section across the Txingudi bay to the Spanish fortified town of Hondarribia (Fontarrabie) is one of the great cross-border day walks of the Basque coast. From Hendaye beach you take a river-crossing ferry (or a foot bridge) into Spain, where the walled medieval town above the fishing harbour is completely intact and the pintxos bars are operating on Spanish lunch hours. About 5 kilometres of walking plus ferry.

A section of France's greatest long-distance trail that is accessible as a day walk from the Basque coast: the GR10 climbs from the village of Sare (itself worth the drive through the Nivelle valley) up through fern and heather moorland to the Col de Saint-Ignace at the foot of La Rhune. The round trip from Sare to the col and back through the village takes about 4 hours and crosses into the kind of pastoral Basque landscape that is invisible from the coast. The path is well-marked with red-and-white blazes throughout.

Biarritz has been the surfing capital of Europe since the late 1950s, and the cluster of surf schools at the Côte des Basques beach is where you access that history with proper instruction. Schools like Roxy Surf Camp and Billabong Surf School operate on the beach from May through September, with a full range of lessons from first-timers to intermediate progression. The instructors are locals who have surfed these breaks their whole lives — the knowledge in a morning group lesson goes well beyond standing up on a board.

The covered market at the heart of town, operating every morning, where the food of the Basque country is gathered in one hall: salt-dried anchovies from Hendaye, Ossau-Iraty sheep's cheese from the mountains, Espelette pepper in every form, foie gras from the Périgord, and farmhouse Basque charcuterie that makes Parisian charcuterie look underambitious. The cheese and charcuterie section is the reason people visit; the fish counter is secondary only because Chez Albert and the port are so close. It is a genuinely functioning market, not a tourist experience dressed as one.

The historic casino right on the Grande Plage, built in 1927 in the Belle Époque tradition of Biarritz as a European playground for royalty and the wealthy. The main gaming floor is what you'd expect, but the real reason to visit is the building and the location — the terrace bar above the beach is one of the most atmospheric places for an evening drink in southwest France. The Biarritz casino is also a concert and performance venue and a much better option for a night out than the gaming tables alone suggest.

Pelota is the Basque national sport — a fast, brutal game where a ball is hurled against a wall at speeds over 200 km/h. The trinquet (indoor pelota court) at Saint-Martin in Biarritz hosts amateur and professional matches throughout the year, and attending one as a spectator is the most genuinely local experience in town. The sport comes in several variations: main nue (bare-handed), paleta gomme (small racquet) and cesta punta (wicker basket). A Friday evening match with locals cheering and the occasional informal betting on the side is unforgettable.

Biarritz's ocean science museum and immersive experience, designed by architect Steven Holl with a wave-form building above the Miramar beach. The interior covers ocean science, surf culture history and Biarritz's role as the birthplace of European surfing through interactive and multimedia installations. It is a more thoughtful alternative to a straightforward aquarium, and the building alone is worth the trip — the architecture is the most interesting piece of new construction on the Basque coast.

Bayonne holds the oldest chocolate festival in France every year in late April, celebrating the city's role as the place where Sephardic Jewish refugees brought the secrets of chocolate-making from Spain in the 17th century — centuries before anywhere else in France. Over 100,000 visitors descend on the old town for four days to taste from the city's master chocolatiers, watch demonstrations and wander stalls that turn the covered market and riverside quays into a chocolate city. The timing coincides with the azaleas blooming in the Basque countryside.

The five-day Fêtes de Bayonne in late July is the largest festival in southwest France — 1.3 million people descend on a city of 50,000 for bullfighting, concerts, street music, fireworks, traditional Basque dance, and the ritual wearing of white with a red foulard. It is the midsummer event that makes Bayonne famous to its own population, and experiencing it even for one evening from Biarritz is an obligation rather than an option. The atmosphere in the old town during the Fêtes is pure Basque intensity.

The grand casino-flanked beach that put Biarritz on the European map when Napoleon III brought Empress Eugénie here in the 1850s. Two kilometres of creamy sand bookended by the Hôtel du Palais on one end and the casino on the other — it is the postcard of Biarritz. The waves are big enough to watch but not as punishing as Côte des Basques, so families and stylish bathers co-exist. Walk the sea terrace at dusk when the casino lights up.

A jagged sea rock 200 metres offshore, linked to the cliffs by a wrought-iron footbridge engineered by Gustave Eiffel, topped with a white statue of the Virgin Mary that fishermen erected for protection. The walk across the bridge is the most dramatic short experience in Biarritz — the swell crashes through sea caves below and the views stretch to the Spanish Pyrenees on a clear day. Napoleon III had the causeway tunnelled to make it accessible; Napoléon III-level scenery for free.

An art-deco oceanarium on the Esplanade de la Vierge, built in 1933 and modernized without losing its original bones. The shark tank and the seal feeding shows get the kids, but the building itself is worth pausing for — the curved concrete and the ocean-facing terrace are the aesthetics of that golden Biarritz holiday era. The museum is modest in size but well-curated, covering Atlantic marine ecosystems and the Basque fishing heritage together.

The 73-metre lighthouse at the northern tip of Biarritz, active since 1834 and open to visitors for the 248-step climb. The payoff is a full-circle panorama: south to the Spanish Basque Coast and the Pyrenees, north along the Landes pine coast for 60 kilometres on a clear morning. It is one of the few real secrets in Biarritz — far fewer people climb it than stand in line for the Rocher de la Vierge, and the view is objectively better.

The beach where modern surfing in Europe was born — California surfer Peter Viertel caught waves here while filming 'The Sun Also Rises' in 1957 and never quite left. The wide, cliff-backed beach faces southwest and picks up the best Atlantic swells, sheltered from the north wind. It is less polished than the Grande Plage and that is entirely the point: surf schools cluster at the north end, families stake out the middle, and the south cliff walk leads to quiet coves. The sunset here, looking west to the open Atlantic, is the best in Biarritz.

Bayonne's old town is 10 minutes east of Biarritz by car and feels like a different country — tall, half-timbered maisons in the Basque red-and-white-and-green, the twin spires of the Gothic cathedral rising over narrow lanes, and the covered markets where the city's famous jambon and chocolate (Bayonne has been making chocolate since the 17th century) are sold year-round. Stroll through Grand Bayonne on one bank, cross the Pont Pannecau for the livelier pintxos bars of Petit Bayonne on the other. Tuesday and Saturday mornings are market days on the Place de la République.

The definitive museum of Basque culture and identity, set in a 17th-century townhouse on the banks of the Nive in Petit Bayonne. The collection covers Basque traditional dress, fishing, agriculture, sport (including a full-sized pelota court reconstruction) and the history of Bayonne from Roman times through the Napoleonic era. If you want to understand why this corner of France feels so distinct from the rest of the country, this is the place that explains it — in two unhurried hours.

A working fishing port and Basque village 20 minutes south of Biarritz, where Louis XIV married the Infanta of Spain in 1660 in the church on the main square. The port still lands tuna and anchovies from the Bay of Biscay, and the old town is the most authentically Basque settlement in the whole area — tighter lanes, more local shops, better pintxos bars than the tourist-heavy parts of Biarritz. The horseshoe bay is calm enough to swim, and the sandy beach is less crowded than anything in Biarritz on a summer weekend.