The drive took abut 13 hours from Frankfurt - we started after work on Friday, slept somewhere off the highway just past Paris, and continued the next morning after our first pain au chocolat. We made it by the late afternoon to Anglet, the little town just on the coast from Bayonne.
Felix has been coming to France on surf trips for years, and kept talking about the bakery in Anglet which makes "the world's best pain au chocolat" but I had no idea what I was in for. Here it is. I think we averaged about 2 per day. Fresh out of the oven, it just melts in your mouth!
We spent the next 10 days surfing on the coast, checking out the beaches, camping in the van, and...eating pain au chocolat. This was a good reef break just south of Biarritz.
One day we drove down to San Sebastian, just across the border in Spain. It's a beautiful town on the ocean, large old buildings - some of which reminded me of the area around Big Ben in London. This was our camping place just south of the city.
Not a bad view to wake up to!
On our drive back towards Anglet, we took a long hike up the highest peak in the area. A little train takes you to the top, or you can hike on a lovely little trail with horses.
The view from the top, looking north towards Bayonne.
One major mission was to find a good wetsuit to replace the one I bought in undergrad for $15 at St. Vinny's in Marquette. It was so old that the neon pink and blue from the 80's is now back in fashion! Our quest for the right one took us to a "big sale at the Rip Curl outlet in Hossegor" - which turned out to be an enormous 4 day event with 60,000 people/day (mostly Spanish) who came with their camper vans and parked in huge open fields and stood in security-guard regulated lines with beer in plastic cups and sun umbrellas. When we first arrived we thought we were at a music festival but couldn't find the stages. We didn't get in line!
I have fond memories playing Milee Bornes as a kid - it's a French card game about car racing. I never thought I'd end up diving around France playing the same game at some point...
The beach in Capbreton
