My France is a sliver of it. The Atlantic southwest, where the country stops being Paris and starts being surfboards, oysters and long lunches. Bordeaux, Hossegor, Arcachon and the Basque coast, where the waves roll in and nobody’s in a hurry. I’m not the person to tell you about the Louvre; I’m the one who’ll tell you where to eat after a morning in the water and which slow Saturday is worth building a whole trip around. Honest, first-person, and made to pair with the Spanish Basque Country just over the border.
Small, salty, full of iodine, eaten on a plastic chair by the lake. Four huts where the family that grew the oysters opens them, October 2026 prices and an honest answer to whether a Hossegor oyster grows in Hossegor.
Hossegor oysters: 4 lake huts, prices and the honest truth Read more »
The 13 real surf outlets at Pédebert as of October 2026: addresses, Sundays, winter, Summer Destock 17 to 25 October, and why the Easter braderie no longer exists.
Hossegor outlets 2026: 13 real surf outlets and Summer Destock Read more »
Hossegor is 45 minutes north of Biarritz and my usual Saturday. Eight reasons to go: the La Gravière wave and the free Quiksilver Festival, the tidal salt lake, six oyster huts, the Pédebert outlets, the Sunday market. Plus free Yégo buses, bus 517 from Bayonne for 2.50 €, parking rules and what really closes in winter.
Hossegor, France: Surf Capital of Europe as a Day Trip from Biarritz Read more »
I am going to the Espelette pepper festival this year, and I have not been this excited about a village party in a long time. The Espelette pepper festival 2026 happens half an hour from my front door: two days, one small Basque village, around 20,000 people and house fronts hung with drying red peppers
Espelette Pepper Festival 2026: Dates, Programme and How to Get There Read more »
The first thing I saw in Guéthary was a group of kids on a big square, playing a game I had never seen in my life. One of them had a long curved scoop strapped to his arm, something between a basket and a pirate’s hook. He caught the ball in it and then hurled
Guéthary: the little Basque village I keep coming back to Read more »
If you think the Basque Country is only surfing and pintxos (the local tapas), then… well, there actually is quite a lot of surfing and pintxos. But Biarritz is more than that. It is where the Atlantic waves meet French elegance and Basque temperament. And a spring Saturday here? It is simply perfect. I got
A Lovely Spring Saturday in Biarritz: Plan for a Perfect Day Read more »
If someone had told me a couple of years ago that one February morning I would pull on a wetsuit and run into the waves of the Atlantic, I would have told them to stop talking nonsense. But that is exactly what happened. Hendaye, the small French resort town right on the Spanish border, is
