28/09/09

Day 20 – September 28
Having access to free wifi and long hot showers we were a bit slow away today! We spent an hour or so cleaning the motorhome and scraping the dead bodies off the windscreen and checking on emails and internet about the weather. We tried to catch up on news from home on the BBC website but couldn’t connect for some reason – maybe not a bad thing!
We had a fairly uninteresting and uneventful journey from Dune du Pyla, driving through Biscarrosse Plage on the way. This was another of our previous holiday destinations but this time much further back – to the year we got married! We camped then in a tent on sand in a pine forest and had to bail water out at about 5.00am after a rainstorm – but that’s another story!
The route to Biarritz, our destination today, was much the same as yesterday in that we travelled dead straight roads through pine plantations with villages and roundabouts interspersed to break the monotony. But the sun is still shining and we are heading for Biarritz!
We arrived at an aire close to Plage de la Milady this afternoon and were immediately met by another British motorhomer – hurray! As I have mentioned before we have not really mixed much as our neighbours have been either French or German. This guy has told us loads about the area, the best bits being that the beach is only 2 minutes walk and the house where Edward VII and Mrs Simpson lived is just across the road, so we had to go for a peek….
We walked the 2km into Biarritz town this evening (more exercise!) and promenaded in true style along the Grande Plage past the magnificent Casino – although not as impressive as Monte Carlo – and enjoyed the last sunshine of the day. There is obviously a high level conference of some sort going on here as we got caught up in a procession of very smart-suited gentlemen with a police escort, complete with guns, leaving the Hotel de Palais, but I don’t think anyone noticed!
The town is an odd mix. It is still very much a grand place, with lovely villa style buildings and a very chic population and obviously very popular, but it has also attracted the surfing fraternity. We watched these brave souls (to my mind anyway!) from many viewpoints along the promenades, circling like sharks waiting for the right wave to ride. It reminded us that what sparked us off motorhoming and travelling was coming across surfers at a deserted beach in Portugal, sleeping in an old battered Transit van – and now here we are (although in considerably more comfortable accommodation!)