4th July - Biarritz

Friday 4th July 2008

We spent the whole of Wednesday at the Aire in Mimizan. We had to pay another 11 Euros for the privilege but we needed a day of rest after yesterdays debacle. We were parked up next to the biggest Motor Home you could wish to see from Scotland. It was ludicrous, bigger than my house back home. The owners seemed pretty settled, maybe this was their home now. 11 Euros a night with free electric, showers, toilets, and a beach side location isn’t an expensive way to live I imagine.

We left Mimizan on Thursday morning heading to Biarritz. The D652 was fairly straightforward, but it still took us around 3 hours to find the Aire listed in the guide book. It was located on the D911 heading out of Biarritz towards Bidart, and it said on the sign upon entrance that we’d be charged 10 Euros per 24hours, but there were no ticket machines and nobody ever came to charge us, so we got away with two free nights, and so did around 40 other Motor homes. This Aire was extremely busy with families, and there were no spaces left at all at one point - I suppose we are just coming into the high season hence the high volume of other campers.
The weather on the Friday in Biarritz was beautiful and we spent the whole day in the town centre or on one of the many beaches. The first beach we went to, just opposite the Aire, was called ‘Plage Milady’ - it was only a small beach but it had the most vicious waves you could imagine. There were around 5 life guards sat on the beach just observing the swimmers as it was quite dangerous really. You could only get about 15 foot out into the water before literally being swept back to shore by huge powerful gushes of water. No matter how hard you swam or how desperately you tried to stay on your feet, the sheer power of the waves knocked you down. It was cracking fun!

The town centre is very clean and Biarritz is clearly a wealthy place, with a lot of posh restaurants and jewellery shops. We went to have a drink in one of the bars (it was my round). Mike had a small (25cl) local lager and I had a bottle of Coke. 8 Euros it cost me. 8 bloody Euros. Mikes beer cost 4.20, and she didn’t even fill up the glass! I was shocked and to be honest, quite angry. I paid it and enjoyed the drinks in the sun…but we kept the glasses; we felt like we’d paid for them anyway.