Hendaye — Plage

Hendaye, the great Basque Country beach, at the very south of the French Atlantic coast: three kilometres of cliff-free sand, at the back of a bay that softens the swell, facing Spain. But here, kiting is a winter sport — banned by bylaw from 1 May to 30 September — with two traps that mark the place: the south wind, and the galerne.

Hendaye is the great urban, family beach of the Basque Country: three kilometres of cliff-free sand, the largest on the Basque coast, at the back of Txingudi bay, between the Deux Jumeaux rocks below the Abbadia estate and the mouth of the Bidassoa facing Hondarribia, in Spain. It's 'the gentlest beach in the Basque Country' — true for the swell, which refracts softly into the bay, far less so for the kite season. Because here, kiting is a winter sport: the town bylaw bans kite, foil and wind-foil from 1 May to 30 September. The legal window, October-April, is the Atlantic in full force — swells, shorebreak, gusty westerly. Two traps mark the spot. The south wind first: it looks promising but it's the Basque foehn, sped up by the Pyrenean relief, offshore, unstable and gusty, fearsome in winter and at the equinoxes — utmost caution. Then the galerne: that north-westerly squall of the Bay of Biscay, sudden and almost without warning, can take the wind from nothing to 100 or even 120 km/h in minutes, with a temperature drop and a brutal shift. It's a true weather kill-switch: if the sky changes to the west, you get out of the water. The tide shrinks the beach sharply at high water, and the western end borders the marina channel and the shuttle that crosses the bay: you keep clear of the mouth and the traffic. Two launch spots depending on the wind — la Baleine in the centre, the Deux Jumeaux to the east — and terrain that makes the west fickle.