Bordeaux 2

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Leaving Bordeaux was hard. The train to Biarritz passed what seemed like sparsely settled farming lands and arrived at about 2:30pm.This was our first station not in the centre of town, where our hotel was located. We had to catch a bus to the town centre and walk a short distance to the hotel.

It was lovely to see the sea again. Biarritz is also the hilliest town we've been to so far. It's setting is beautiful. The guy running the bar at la Carritz said it is busy year round and draws people from Spain, only 18km away; Russia, a lot more than 18km away; and Australia, a lot further still. The attraction is the mild climate (although it's 13 degrees today) and the surf.

The Bay of Biscay is notorious for it's rough seas and the coast along here is pretty wild. The tidal range is impressive, changing rapidly and noticeably during the day. At breakfast it was very low, with the small harbour completely drained and the boats sitting on the mud yet by lunch time the sea had risen, the boats were floating in several metres of water, the waves were pounding the rocky coast and inlets and the beaches all but disappeared. There were still some hardy surfers out in the swell.

There are some interesting buildings here; an impressive church right on the cliffs above the sea, a palace built by Napoleon III, a casino on the beach and a Russian Orthodox church. We went inside this church and saw the end of a service in Russian, of course.

Seafood is big on the menu and there are lots of languages and accents to be heard in restaurants. Spanish is common here, as is Basque. This is part the Basque region, which has a separate identity, language and culture from France and Spain, which it straddles.

Things we will recall from Biarritz... The wild and dynamic sea, the cosmopolitan atmosphere, the hills and coast, the mix of buildings and architecture, the food and the England v France rugby game on the restaurant TV with England ahead 14-3. With the "old enemy" in a commanding lead the locals were looking pretty glum.

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