Jeannine & Roger's French Cheese Odyssey

Biarritz & Saint-Jean-de-Luz - 5th June

Essence of France Photo Challenge No.18 - The Sea France is surrounded by one ocean and three seas, homework for you to go and find out what they are. France has 5500km of coastline and as we are currently staying minutes away from the Atlantic Ocean it seemed fitting to go and visit two of the area’s most famous seaside towns.

We arrived at Biarritz at 11.15am timing it perfectly because you get one hour free car parking plus an additional two hours as they don’t charge for the lunch break, it’s an incentive to encourage people into town to support the cafes. We then taught an Australian couple how to use the meters; red number plates, jandals and shorts, you can’t miss Kiwis and Aussies.

Biarritz History: It was once a simple fishing port, with swimming in the bay frowned upon. However, this changed in the 19th century when Napoleon III married a young lass called Eugenie, who had stayed here as a child. They had holidays here and eventually Napoleon built a house for his beloved wife; this started a trend of Kings and aristocracy coming to the area, and much to the council’s horror the royal couple also made it fashionable to swim in the bay.

We walked for nearly two hours around town to see: The Sainte Eugenie church, the old port, The Halles for lunch, and to keep my mother happy to dip our feet in the Atlantic Ocean. Close enough; we got a woolly Frenchman to do that. The tractors below are moving the sand back down the beach.

The second town we went to was Saint-Jean-de-Luz, made famous when King Louis XIV married Infanta Marie-Therese of Austria here in the Saint-Jean Baptiste Church. Fishing boats used to leave here on whaling expeditions, but now they just catch sardines and tuna. We walked up the beach promenade to the old port, and returned via the tourist shopping alley, taking in the Saint Jean Baptise church which had three levels of gallery stalls down each side of the church, almost like a Shakespearean theatre.

Cheese Experience No.45 - Le Brebiou A creamy sheep’s cheese, produced in the Pyrenees-Atlantic region about an hours drive from Bayonne. Looks like Brie cheese but whiter and obviously has a slightly different taste being sheep’s milk. It is a lovely refreshing cheese after a long hot day at the beach.