Saint-Jean de Luz Redux
and a new view of Biarritz
I wonder if it’s my personality or if it’s an American trait or … could it besomething else? Whenever I go somewhere and fall in love with the place, I start looking at the Real Estate windows that decorate the main streets of every beautiful place. Some part of me wants to own a piece of heaven. It’s completely nonsensical. Not living in heaven but thinking one can own a spot in heaven. I still own my home in California and I rent an apartment in Paris, and the last thing I need is another responsibility. I’m too old to think in terms of investment possibilities. I nearly bought a little home in Normandy last summer (2022). I didn’t because the inspector I hired to do a thorough investigation told me not to. My rational brain knows it’s far less expensive to rent a place wherever I go. This past summer it was Saint Jean de Luz.
I was in Saint-Jean de Luz for the last four days. I tacked it on to a trip to Biarritz for a conference. Little did I know that the weather would grace us with summertime warmth. I felt as if I was given the last drops of summer. The ocean water was warm, people in bathing suits and colorful umbrellas dotted the beach, and the sunsets were as dramatic as they were last July. The sun just set further south.
Biarritz surprised me. I was holding a prejudice about the city. Probably because it attracts the rich, as in over-the-top wealthy, and infamous. One of my fellow #FranceStackers, Mike Werner, wrote about it here and here/Part 2. I really enjoyed my three days there. I stayed at the Residence Le Grand Large which is half a block from the ocean, high up on a cliff. It’s a ten-minute walk on a pleasant downhill slop to the closest beach, La plage Port Vieux. Biarritz is large and sprawls into Anglet the next city in a similar way that cities on the East Coast of the US morph into each other with no demarcation. But I wasn’t there to discover Biarritz. I was attending a conference that allowed me plenty of time to wander from the Plage Port Vieux to an outcropping with a white sculpture of the Virgin to the Grand Plage with its casino and onto the Lighthouse at Point Saint Martin.
In the early morning, I could see a hundred surfers looking to find a wave. My little tourist map told me that when the film The Sun Also Rises was filmed near Biarritz, Peter Vertel, one of the scriptwriters, a Californian, brought surfing to Biarritz. Now there are at least twenty schools to learn surfing and an International Competition is held there each year.
From Biarritz to Saint-Jean de Luz is a train ride of fifteen minutes. When I got off the train Sunday afternoon, it was as if I’d been there yesterday instead of early July. I wheeled my valise to my cute little studio rental navigating the streets by heart. The window in the studio overlooked the entire Baie de Saint Jean, with the three-hundred-meter beach. I was greeted with afternoon entertainment: a military flyover similar to the Blue Angels. A helicopter lifted off a stone pier and did somersaults in the air. A yellow and orange small two propeller plane that I probably should know the name of but don’t, flew up and back, upside down and rightside up, and sprayed water which I’m guessing is normally done on land for fires. The best part was six planes flying in formation. Two had tails of white stream, two with a red stream, and two with a blue stream behind them. They made hearts in the sky, they flew straight up and then down in the design of a harp. The sky looked as if a blue, red, and white waterfall was falling down into the sea below. The planes would break apart, three going one way, three another way, turn around and fly towards each other, zigging and zagging, creating fascinating designs.
The beach which at this time of year usually has a scattering of people, was packed. Everyone had come from miles around for the afternoon. They’d planted colorful umbrellas to get some shade on an afternoon that peaked at 80o/27o. Looking down from my window, I saw an enchanting montage of circles of every color in the rainbow.
My anxieties that it “just wouldn’t be the same” because the sun set at 7:30 pm instead of 10:30 pm quickly disappated. It was different but just as good. The gazebo was quiet and many of the stores were closed for the season but there was plenty going on. Because of the weather, people were out and about. Women walked the promenade dressed in sundresses made for July and August. Men were in shorts and T-shirts. And, of course, there were dogs everywhere. Small dogs, large dogs, happy dogs, dogs swimming in the water, and dogs that watched suspiciously while their people went swimming. The water was warm. A group of older people swam from one end of the beach to the other every morning around 8 a.m. Being one of the first to plant my bare feet in sand was enough reason for me to get up early.
Tuesday night, I went to investigate the one movie theatre: Le Select. Turns out to have five screens, a café, and an International Film Festival was finishing up on the evening of my arrival. I decided to see the new Woody Allen movie: Coup de Chance (Stroke of Luck). I hadn’t read any reviews except the beginning of one that said it was good, reminiscent of his movies of ten and twenty years ago. I should have read further. I assumed since it was Woody Allen,it would be in English with French subtitles. Ha! It was completely in French. Not dubbed. French actors speaking their own language. Does WA speak French? Woody Allen has lost all favor in the US. At the Cannes Film Festival this year, half of the audience stood up to clap for him. People followed him around for selfies. I understood three-quarters of it which made me proud. And I enjoyed it. I would like to see it again with English subtitles. To read a review, click here
This is not the end. Just a pause until my next visit to Saint-Jean de Luz, as lovely a spot on earth as I can imagine.
A bientôt,
Sara
That's how I can tell that I really like a place I'm traveling. I start looking at the postings in real estate windows. It's all fantasy. Renting is freedom, buying ties you down.
I stayed in Bayonne for 2 months the summer of 22 and loved it. It was an easy bus ride to Biarritz for surf lessons and open water swims. I love m’y time in the French Basque Country. I would go back in a heart ❤️ beat.