City Overview

Biarritz is a charming and magnificient city. With its ostentatious shorefront houses in carelessly mated architectural styles Biarritz glistens with money. With its huge beaches, powerful waves and mild climate all year round, Biarritz was the natural choice in 1957 to welcome the first surfers on the European continent and to become Europe's historical surfing capital. And with its mildn local climate year-round, it has become a golfing destination as well.

In the Middle Ages, Biarritz was a small fishing port, with crashing ocean waves on which rode the brave whalers. Everything changed in 1854, when the Empress Eugénie and Napoleon III set up there with their retinue. Biarritz transformed into a playground for the european rich and became " the queen of beaches and the beach of kings ".

Biarritz west of Bayonne has a grandiose center, but has been developed along the coast by residential suburbs. Nowadays, about a quarter of Biarritz's population are retired. The town has three good beaches, with the best surfing in Europe and two casinos. A fun and very lively town for teenagers in summertime, there's always something going on, a band playing, jugglers in the street, painters in the old port, skate boarders or roller skaters showing off their talent. Biarritz also provides a perfect environment for sport lovers, its long sandy beaches and incrediblewaves attract surfers from all over the world. The Biarritz Surf Festival is the summer surf event in europe, bringing together some of the greatest names in Hawaiian and world surfing for a week of longboard contests and music and films, on the beach at the Côte des Basques, the birthplace of surfing in France.

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