A little about Saint Jean de Luz and the camping facilities in and around the area, particularly the surfing to be found here.

Saint Jean de Luz is one of the most charming and picturesque beach towns in France, and most certainly in south west France where it is situated. It is a quiet Basque seaside community located about 24 km southwest of Bayonne in southwestern France very near to the Spanish border. This is Basque country and this town is in the heart of it.

St Jean de Luz has a beautiful, long sandy beach as well as a great pedestrian shopping area, lots of Basque architecture, delightful towns squares and excellent surfing nearby. There is also a small, but very active fishing port here, where you can watch fisherman pull in large catches of sardines, anchovies and tuna.

Getting there is easy enough (I always say that) and really you shouldn't need the aid of a map until you get to the immediate area if you follow these directions. Because St Jean is so far down the SW coast we must assume that you have taken a ferry crossing no further north east than Le Havre, so from Le Havre, Deauville or Caen head for Alencon, Tours, Poitiers, Angouleme and Bordeaux.

From Cherbourg and St Malo head down the dual carriageway to Rennes and Nantes where you will pick up the Nantes peripherique (ring road) about 4 KM before you actually get there. Head for, and always follow signs for Bordeaux. Exit the peripherique at junction 48.

All of you should now be approaching Bordeaux where you will pick up the Bordeaux peripherique. Follow signs for Bayonne, Biarritz, St Jean de Luz and l'Espagne. Exit the peripherique at junction 16 onto the N10 which is free. This road will become the N10 E6 E70 and you must stay on that until you reach a juntion with the autoroute A63 E6 E70 going southwest or sud-ouest to Bayonne and Biarritz. From there your destination is just a few KM.

The main beach at St Jean de Luz bears the same name as the town and there are beach tents for rent to get out of the hot summer sun to a certain extent and which cost about €7 per day. There is also a smaller beach about 2 km from nearby Socoa, which you can reach by bus.

Although St-Jean de Luz is a lesser known for it's surfing than Biarritz nearby, don't let this fool you as it is still a great place to catch waves year-round, as is quite a lot of this part of the SW France coastline. There are lots of surf shops in the town where you can rent boards, sign up for lessons or even take lessons in a week-long surfing school. The best surfing can be found about 5 km north-east of St-Jean de Luz at the Plage Lafitenia.

Back on the topic of surfing again: There are some awsome waves generated around here, and we firmly believe that you should either be a proficient surfer or at least have an instructor with you as 12 metre waves (near enough 39 - 40 feet high) are not uncommon, and some whoppers generated from about 2 KM out which can reach 60 feet in height. Commonsense says that surfing here is not for the absolute beginner.

France’s largest Basque church, L'Eglise St-Jean Baptiste may look a tad plain on the outside but it hides a magnificent interior and the splendid Baroque altarpiece where Louis XIV and Marie Therese of Spain were married in 1660.

Camping holidays are a must in the St-Jean de Luz region which has sites offering take your own tent camping facilities where you simply rent a pitch, pre-erected tents for hire which come fully kitted out with cooker, beds, fridge/freezer and utensils, and of course nowhere would be complete without mobile homes which of course have their own toilets and showers.