Eglise Sainte-Eugenie

Go inside and look for the baptismal fonts. They're giant seashells. Not carved stone shaped like shells. Actual enormous seashells shipped all the way from Manila in the Philippines. In a neo-Gothic church. On the Basque coast. Named after a Spanish empress. If that combination doesn't make you smile, nothing will.

The church was built between eighteen ninety-eight and nineteen oh three, replacing an older chapel called Notre-Dame-de-Pitie. It's named after the patron saint of Napoleon the Third's wife, Empress Eugenie de Montijo, who basically put Biarritz on the map. Napoleon personally financed the bell tower to the tune of thirty thousand francs. That was serious money in the eighteen sixties.

The stained glass windows are worth a proper look. They were designed by Luc-Olivier Merson, a Prix de Rome winner and celebrated painter. Merson was famous for his religious and mythological paintings, and the windows here have that same luminous quality. The light coming through them in the afternoon is particularly striking.

But honestly, come back to those seashells. The Philippines connection is a reminder of how far Biarritz's maritime reach extended. This wasn't just a fishing village that got lucky with an empress. Basque sailors travelled the world. They hunted whales across the Atlantic, fished cod off Newfoundland, and traded across the globe. Giant shells from Manila as baptismal fonts aren't random decoration. They're a statement about where these people went and what they brought back.

The church sits on one of the best vantage points in town, overlooking the little harbour below. If you sit on the terrace outside, you get the full sweep of Biarritz's coastline. Eugenie knew how to pick a spot.