Cote des Basques

You're looking at the birthplace of surfing in Europe, and it happened because a Hollywood screenwriter got bored. In nineteen fifty-six, Peter Viertel was in Biarritz working on a film adaptation of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. He'd surf in California, and watching these Atlantic waves, he couldn't help himself. He had a surfboard shipped over from the States and started riding waves right here at Cote des Basques.

The film's producer, Dick Zanuck, son of the legendary Darryl Zanuck, brought a board too. And here's the detail that makes the whole story perfect. Ernest Hemingway himself reportedly watched from the sand. The man whose novel inspired the film sat on this beach watching the birth of European surfing. You couldn't write a better origin story if you tried.

A local nicknamed Geo Trouvetout, real name Georges Hennebutte, got his hands on Viertel's board, fixed it up, and became one of the first Europeans to actually surf. He and three others are still known locally as the tontons surfeurs, the uncle surfers. They're legends in this town. From that moment in nineteen fifty-six, surfing spread across France, then Spain, then Portugal, then the rest of Europe. It all started right here.

The Biarritz Maider Arosteguy competition, created in nineteen eighty-four, is the oldest surfing competition in Europe. And this stretch of coast produces some genuinely excellent waves. The beach break here works best at mid to low tide, and when a solid Atlantic swell rolls in, you'll understand exactly why Viertel couldn't resist.

What strikes you about this beach is how little it's changed in character. Yes, there are more surfers now. Many more. But the waves, the cliff backdrop, the light on the water in late afternoon, that's all exactly what Viertel and Hemingway would have seen.