Car Hire: Take advantage of the special easyJet inflight rates. Visit the Europcar desk on arrival or call +33 (0)5 5943 8020. Open from Monday-Saturday 8am-11pm and 9.45am-11pm Sunday.

Airport Transfer: Pre-book your door-to-door transfer with easyJet’s transfer partner, Holiday Taxis—from home to the airport and the airport to city or resort (easyjet.holidaytaxis.com).

Taxi: The two-kilometre journey to the centre costs €10 (€13 at night) and takes 10 minutes.

Bus: The local Navette, STAB, runs from 7.30am-7.30pm and leaves the airport every hour, stopping at Biarritz Town Hall. Tickets: €1.20.

Bar du Marché
( 8 Rue des Halles . Tel. 05 5924 1691 )
The popular Bar du Marché, with its friendly au passé simple tone, serves omelettes and salads, wine and steaming onion soup so cheesy you need a knife to proceed.

Sushiland
( 9 Avenue de la Reine Victoria . Tel. 05 5922 2496 )
A trendy, affordable, if not quite Japanese eatery (despite its décor), Sushiland serves sashimi, maki, duck dumplings, miso sans tofu and more.

Sissinou
( 5 Avenue Foch . Tel. 05 5922 5150 )
Warm, punchy and idiosyncratic. Utterly delicious food on a rotating seasonal menu including: wild mushroom ravioli, millefeulle of rabbit and vegetables, lamb sweetbreads crowned with pea sauce, chopped beef tartare, duck-fat chips and dainty griolles.

La Rotonde
( l'Hotel du Palais, 1 Avenue de L'Imperatrice. Tel. 05 5941 6400 )
Offering Michelin and regular menus, La Rotonde caters to those who appreciate dining in Napoleon III’s living room. Try crème glacée de carottes and cochon terrine (pork pâté and carrot ice-cream), with gâteau au chocolat-caramel with feuilleté de praliné (chocolate and caramel cake) for dessert. In a word, the wines are sublime.

Les 100 Marches
( Square Jean Baptist Lassalle. Tel. 05 5924 7561 )
A big reputation in a humble log cabin. Les 100 Marches overlooks the Côte des Basques and is world-renowned for its sunsets—it must be the best site for an aperitif in all of Biarritz.

Miguel Café
( 11 Rue Perspective Côte Basques. Tel. 05 5922 3621 )
Miguel, the owner of this cosy bar/restaurant, himself a musician, has talented friends who jam here most weekends and sometimes on a Thursday.

Le Copa
( 24 Avenue Edouard V11 . Tel. 05 5924 6539 )
Local clubbers congregate here, low or high season, rain or shine. They dance, eat breakfast, sleep a bit and begin anew.

In honour of the Basque region's official number, Boutique 64 is a clothing shop that’s super for gifts, colourful cottons and beach fashion accessories (16 Rue Gambetta).

At the Maison Haranea, in the village Sare, you'll find le Musée du Gâteau Basque. Learn about the production, then sample the products: gâteaux with cream or cherry filling, shortbread and tea, available at the adjacent cake shop (Tel. 05 5954 2209).

Leading from Place Clemenceau to Port Vieux, Rue Mazagran is lined with shops, cafés and restaurants. Stroll by the Côte des Baques, then have a brandy in one of the bars.

Until December, Biarritz’s exceptional Dans le Noir Festival aims to give each spectator a sense of something different. Through dance, music, film, photos and more, it helps you to pretend, just for an instant, you are someone else (2 Rue Ambroise Paré. Tel. 05 5922 5860).

Sare – A pretty hilltop village about 20 kilometres south of Biarritz, Sare boasts Basque architecture like the 17th-century Eglise Saint Martin, while the majestic Mount Rhune is just a brief train ride away. A short jaunt further south lands you in the prehistoric Grottes de Sare.

From the late Middle Ages, Biarritz's history was a whale of a tale. This major port for whaling ships reached its hiatus around 1600.

Compiled by Onnaca Heron