Biarritz travel guide

Top 10 sights in Biarritz

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1. 

   1© A1AA1A · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Abbadia Castle

   A neo-Gothic château at Hendaye built between 1864 and 1879 for the explorer Antoine d'Abbadie by Viollet-le-Duc and Edmond Duthoit, after his years mapping Ethiopia. His observatory, library and Ethiopian collections are still in place, and he left it to the Academy of Sciences.

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2. 

   2© --Pinpin 11:01, 12 November 2006 (UTC) · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Bayonne Cathedral

   The cathedral of Bayonne, built between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries in northern French Gothic — unusual this far south — with twin spires added in the nineteenth. Its cloister is one of the largest in France and it is on the World Heritage pilgrim routes.

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3. 

   3© Jvillafruela · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Musée Bonnat-Helleu

   An art museum in Bayonne founded in 1901 on the collections the painter Leon Bonnat gave his native city, his drawings above all. Later bequests, including 181 works by Paul Cesar Helleu, made it one of the largest art holdings in southern France; it closed for rebuilding in 2011.

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4. 

   4© --Superbass · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Petit train de la Rhune

   A metre-gauge rack railway climbing La Rhune on the French side of the border, running since 1924 with its original wooden carriages at eight kilometres an hour. From the 905-metre summit the Atlantic, the Pyrenees and Spain are all in view.

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5. 

   5© FLLL · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Synagogue of Biarritz

   A synagogue at 9 rue Pellot opened in 1904, when Biarritz drew wealthy visitors from across Europe. Closed in 1995 as unsafe, it was restored and returned to use in 2012.

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6. 

   6© FLLL · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Synagogue of Bayonne

   A synagogue of 1837 in the Saint-Esprit quarter across the Adour, built for the descendants of the Portuguese Jews who settled here after the expulsions from Iberia. A plain front hides a galleried hall that ranks among the largest synagogues in France.

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7. 

   7© A1AA1A · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Le Musée de la mer

   An Art Deco aquarium on the Biarritz cliffs, opened in 1933 as a marine research station, showing the fauna of the Bay of Biscay. Seals are fed on the roof terrace twice a day and a Gulf of Mexico tank was added in 2011.

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8. 

   8© Christian David · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Russian orthodox church of Biarritz

   A Russian Orthodox church built in 1892 for the aristocrats who wintered on the Basque coast, its blue dome standing among the seafront villas. Icons carried from Russia hang inside, and services are still sung in Church Slavonic.

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9. 

   9© Cobber17 · CC BY-SA 3.0

   St. Andrew's Church, Bayonne

   A neo-Gothic Catholic parish church in central Bayonne, built in the nineteenth century as the city expanded beyond its walls. Its tall single spire is a fixed point in the skyline.

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10. 

    10© Harrieta171 · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Basque Museum in Bayonne

    The museum of Basque life and Bayonne history, in the Maison Dagourette, a 16th-century merchant's house on the bank of the Nive. Open since 1924, its rooms run through farming, seafaring, pelota and the Jewish community of Saint-Esprit.

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1. 

   1© Hibiscus7 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste (Saint-Jean-de-Luz)

   The church at Saint-Jean-de-Luz where Louis XIV married the Spanish infanta Maria Theresa in June 1660, sealing the Treaty of the Pyrenees. The door they left by was walled up afterwards and has never been reopened; three tiers of oak galleries line the nave.

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2. 

   2© Arno8892 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Cité de l'Océan et du Surf

   A museum in Biarritz opened in June 2011 to a design by Steven Holl with Solange Fabião, its roof curved like a wave with two glass pods beneath it. It treats the ocean scientifically and surfing culturally, in a town that introduced surfing to Europe in 1957.

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   Jardin botanique de Bayonne

   A botanical garden of three thousand square metres laid out in 1994 along the ramparts of Bayonne, in a narrow strip on top of the seventeenth-century walls. It is planted in Japanese style with about a thousand species.

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4. 

   4© Jardin botanique de Saint-Jean-de-Luz · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Jardin botanique littoral Paul Jovet

   A coastal botanical garden of 2.5 hectares at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, planted with the native flora of the Basque shore and the dune systems. It shows how the species here survive salt and wind, on the cliff where they actually grow.

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5. 

   5© Glaz · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Château du Vigneau

   A former winery at Bayonne converted into a sparkling-wine house, in a château of the seventeenth century. It works with the Irouléguy appellation, the small Basque wine region in the foothills, and takes visitors for tastings.

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   Saint-Martin (Ahetze)

   The parish church of Ahetze in the Basque country, dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours and listed as a historic monument on 5 June 1973. Its tiers of wooden galleries are typical of Labourd churches, where the men sat above the nave and the women below.

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