Once chosen then thoughts of How, When, Where of Before, After, and a bit of During kick in. And I love the planning parts.
Surfing Event Biarritz
How I got to France
View for 3 hrs No eye contact No acknowledgement
Surfing Event Biarritz
Tour hotels Arrive early or stay late
Hotel near Train Station
Best 15 feet down hallway
Tour hotels Arrive early or stay late
Can't pronounce tastes good
Pronounce a challenge
Place for Pilgrims
Can't pronounce tastes good
How do you say that?
Don't Worry - I couldn't pronounce anything - I survived. This is a Multi-Lingual Tour. Most of us have seen French, maybe event took classes in it. Most of us have seen Spanish, ditto on classes. But.....
How many of us from North America have seen or learned Basque or formal Euskara Batua?
We were given a "euskarazko hiztegi_txikia" or "small basque dictionary" - key words in eight languages... helped - except for pronounciation... Txakoli is sort of like Choco-lee... yep.
Red wine is Vin Rouge in French, or Vino Tinto in Spanish, or Ardo Beltza in Basque (Euskara) and, no I never said it right in Basque... but I got by.
Where do you sleep?
Months in advance you get the details for the First and Last hotels of the Tour. In the past, I have sometimes added nights at these same hotels on either end, but sometimes I have chosen to stay in another hotel or even city to experience a bit more. This time I chose to stay near the Bayone train station with the hope of taking trains each day before the tour. However, train schedules on Sunday can be limited due to various factors, such as 'engineering works', i.e. fixing the track.
A great aspect of the tour hotels, they are near the heart of the action - near where you want to be for all things travel.
Planning - details details
Getting there
Well, no - not by surf board. Decided to go a few days early, flying into Paris, and then a fast TGV train to Bayonne. Others flew into Biarritz and a few drove up from Spain after visiting Barcelona. Being early allowed visits to the two nearby coastal resorts, one via train and one via bus. Did see surfers, but not me.
Key is to commit early and read the provided Rick Steves' Guide and watch the related video episodes. Although airlines seem a mystery, I got a great price on TGV ticket online by booking as early as possible.
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