A Ritzy day in Biarritz

It’s now almost 10.30 pm, very late for writing the day, but I must try before I forget. Another superb day, weather wise and activity wise! Actually almost too hot - I think it went up to 29°, but not complaining….I wore my light and comfy Aldi pants, and sandals that I didn’t think I’d be wearing again till back in Sydney. We decided to take advantage of the weather and have another seaside excursion - this time to Biarritz, which is a 20 minute bus ride away, a route - the T1 - that goes every 5 or 10 minutes.

Biarritz was a contrast to St Jean de Luz in that it is big, and full of huge posh hotels and grand buildings…where royalty used to come to stay, or the hotel du Palais which was a palace of Napoleon III. There is a string of beautiful beaches, amazing rock formations and a small fishing port (where we had lunch), and a lighthouse on one headland. Lots of people out and about with the wonderful weather, and again quite a crowd in the water. We walked from one end to the other, quite a distance, and at one end at least I don’t think you can swim at high tide as the water obviously came right up to the stone wall. This time, with sandals only to deal with, I had a paddle and the water was quite warm! I thought it would be freezing..would have been tempted to go in if I had swimmers.

Anyway, lots of fun wandering along and seeing all…amazing houses - some Art Deco and art nouveau, Basque and some ghastly relics from the 50s (not too many of them thank goodness). Had a light lunch of our favourite peppers padron and chiperons (there is such a merging of Spanish - language and food - here…often signs are in Basque, French and Spanish, and there are always Rioja wines in the wine list…we realised that looking at the map when we were in St Jean de Luz yesterday we were closer to San Sebastián than to Bayonne (or it seemed to be!). At lunch we each had a glass of white wine chosen by the waiter, but a couple at the next table had a bottle of rosé and offered us to finish the end of their bottle - a half glass each! Very friendly.

So after a lovely day we returned for a short while before setting out to get some dinner. Decided to go somewhere new, not to go back to the 2 we had already tried, and walking along the riverbank where there are lines of restaurants saw a small one we hadn’t noticed and asked for a table there…and after being seated found we were in a serious Hartley restaurant, very streamlined and meticulous and laidback but perfect! You can’t tell by the prices on the list outside, as they aren’t all that different from restaurant to restaurant, but this was really special, and we have found that it has a Michelin star. Anyway we had a wonderful meal which had just fallen from the sky! Fish - I had cod and Amr hake. We didn’t want entrées but asked for a salad (which wasn’t on the menu) and they checked and said fine…and with our dinner came a dish of rocket and radicchio, with nuts and pine nuts and a perfect dressing…very flexible for a restaurant (that was before we realised what we were in) of that calibre. So now back and satisfied and off to bed.Read more