Kitesurfing atHendaye

Hendaye is the largest beach on the Basque coast, at the very south of the French Atlantic: three kilometres of cliff-free sand, at the back of Txingudi bay, facing Spain. It's called 'the gentlest beach in the Basque Country', and it's true — the swell refracts softly here, the beach is wide and the slope shallow. One caveat: here, kiting is a winter sport, banned by bylaw from 1 May to 30 September. The good window is therefore October-April, the Atlantic at full force — and two traps to know by heart, the south wind and the galerne.

All of Hendaye's character lies in a paradox: the gentlest beach in the Basque Country, and a kite season among the most serious on the coast. Gentle it truly is — Txingudi bay refracts the swell, the slope is shallow, you recover easily near shore. But the bylaw closes kiting from 1 May to 30 September, and the legal window, October-April, is the winter Atlantic without a net. Two winds sign the place and deserve naming. The south first: deceptive, it's the Basque foehn juiced by the Pyrenean relief, offshore and gusty — utmost caution. Then the galerne, that north-westerly punch off the Bay of Biscay that lands almost without warning. On geography, the tide bites hard into the beach at high water, and the western end skirts the harbour channel and its shuttle — two launches depending on the wind, la Baleine in the centre, the Deux Jumeaux to the east. Beautiful and demanding, never the family spot it seems in summer.