In Biarritz ... town — standing on the balcony of my chandeliered guest room, feeling as if I’d sneaked into a royal retreat — unfolded in what was once the bedroom of the last monarch of ...

I live in a village less than an hour from Biarritz ... It's a beach town with a unique chic-shabby charm, a cross between Barcelona and Brighton, where beautifully made-up old ladies totter ...

It’s amazing how reputations, sometimes decades, even centuries old, can still hold sway ... and promptly introduced surfing to France. Biarritz has been the surfing capital of Europe ever ...