Hossegor

The surf was a consistent waist to head high for most of the trip, with ocean temperatures in the mid 20 degrees C and the air temperatures hitting 35 C. We’d get up fairly early most mornings and surf before breakfast, as by the middle of the morning finding somewhere to park was often difficult, especially on the town beaches of Hossegor and Capbreton. An early start also meant the best pick of the waves, as long as the tide was right of course. Exploring the surrounding area on days when the surf was flat took us inland to Dax, and south to the Pyrenees and over into Spain. A day spent in the Spanish town of San Sebastian was an experience, speaking no Spanish I discovered tapas in a back street bar and spent several hours walking the sea front and back streets. Hitting the mountain roads one surfless day took us to a small collection of shops and restaurants that cling to the step hills right on the border. The Rip Curl Pro surf tour called into Hossegor giving us a chance to be shown how it’s done! Highlights were the expression session where surfers are marked on the best trick.

Quick Tips:

Book accommodation early, especially in the height of summer. We covered a lot more distance than we expected on the night drive from Roscoff and so arrived in Hossegor the night before we were booked into the house. After scouring the area for hours our car ended up in the back room of a small hotel in a village just outside of Hossegor; another ended up back in Dax (after a lengthy begging session at the tourist info centre); and the last spent a second night in the car!

I also discovered the French don’t like you re-entering a supermarket with purchases. I guess no one anywhere does, but after being led to a small upstairs room filled with TV screens, I was told in broken English that I had stolen from them and all three of us would be searched. The three of us, a little confused and knowing we were innocent, laughed, which also didn’t go down very well! People anywhere in authority don’t like to be made to feel stupid (i.e. when I pulled out the receipt for my batteries), but they especially don’t like to be made to look stupid by a foreigner!

Best Way To Get Around:

Getting to the Aquitaine region is best done either by car or plane. Both Biarritz and Bordeaux have international airports, but, although flying is quicker it doesn’t allow you to transport the same amount of gear, or bring back the same amount of cheap booze! We travelled, like I said, by car, and although it was a 10-hour drive form the port of Roscoff the French road network is very good, and relatively quiet. The motorways charge a toll, but it’s not a lot and the roads are of such good quality we really didn’t mind. The gates can be card or change operated, with some also manned, but the machines give change so traffic is not held at all unless a there’s a Muppet in front! When travelling across the boarder, the easy and quickest way to get to major Spanish cities is to use the motorway, but to really explore the area and get up into the mountains buy a good map and explore the small, steep and windy mountain roads.

Just over the border, maybe an hour from Capbreton where we stayed, San Sebastian is a popular place for visitors to go. The seafront is nice, with a long beach backed by the city, with high cliffs on either side. The city centre has all the regular shops you would expect in a city of this size, but I preferred to explore the older back streets. These were narrow streets lined with smaller shops and bars. Of course, many of these are touristy, but if you keep looking, you can find some interesting little shops. I split from the rest of the crowd, as I often do when exploring cities, and bought a little Spanish dictionary. Not speaking a word of Spanish, I took myself into a nice-looking bar in the back streets and sampled tapas. The atmosphere in the bar was fantastic, with a nice mix of locals as well as a few tourists. Even though I don't speak Spanish (well, except for "cerveza," which, meaning beer, is obviously a very important word to know), I found that as long as I tried, people were very responsive and accommodating. I think that a very important part of travelling abroad is to at least try and communicate in the native language, even though it sometimes seems quite a scary prospect!

We decided to travel back during the day and stay overnight in Brittany, an hour or so from Roscoff. Though travelling at night has its advantages: little or no traffic, easy to sleep when it’s not your turn to drive, and above all, you don't lose a day by spending it in the car. The downside is that the French countryside isn't very interesting at 4:30am. We headed north to Bordeaux, the only section that was plagued by traffic, as Bordeaux is where the Paris road brings people from the northwest into the southwest area. Then via Nantes and Vannes until we arrived in southern Brittany and headed for the town of Carnac, situated at the start of the Quiberon Peninsula. This is a lovely area, and we ate in a small seafood restaurant overlooking the ocean before turning in. The next day we headed west towards Quimper, before turning once again north and heading up over the hills to Morlaix, and then finally to Roscoff to catch the ferry back home to Plymouth. The central area of Brittany is a lovely place, an area of highlands that reminds me of Dartmoor back home in Devon, England. There are many small towns and villages that we drove through, and we stopped in Pleyben to stretch our legs and sample some local dark beer, which I might add was very good, and rather strong!