How Biarritz was Visited in 1813.
Reproduced by permission from ‘The Battles of the Nivelle and Nive,’ by Colonel Hill James.
Town Plan No. 15.—Biarritz.
waves, and raised picturesquely on a rock above it is a statue of the Virgin. The promontory bears the Moro-Spanish name of Atalaye, and still retains slight ruins of the Château of Ferragus, built in the thirteenth century to guard the harbour. A little to the south-east of the town is the only other early structure of Biarritz—the Church of St. Martin, dating back in part to the same period as the château. The pillars are dated 1541.
Sir John Hope—afterwards the Earl of Hopetoun—to whom reference has been made in connection with Bayonne, had his headquarters for a time in a house above the Vieux Port.
The walks and drives that have been made round the promontory are delightful places in which to be industriously idle while watching the breaking waves, the curving sweep of sandy shore towards the blue mountains beyond the Spanish frontier, and the foreground of French, English, and cosmopolitan visitors.