Hôtel du Palais Biarritz

Biarritz’s grande dame is the Hotel du Palais, the summer residence of Napoleon and Eugenie, an ostentatious brick-red and beige palace standing at the water’s edge, offering incomparable views up and down the rugged Basque coast and out into the Bay of Biscay. Old-world opulence carries the day; practically the last modern sight you’ll see upon arrival is the line of expensive luxury automobiles dispatching their VIP passengers at the hotel’s door.

Well, that and perhaps the surfers. The surfing here on France’s southwestern coast is among the best in Europe, and makes for an incongruous contrast with the moneyed aristocracy on display at the Hotel du Palais; needless to say, there’s little overlap between the two crowds.

Unlike some grand hotels, there’s not a sub-standard room in the house, unless you’re extremely choosy about needing the highest ceilings and largest windows (in that case avoid the rooms in the eaves). Even the humblest doubles are lavishly decorated with rich fabrics and period furniture. Suites are suitably grand, of course, and the bay-view rooms are the most desirable, though the Palais is built so close to the sea that there’s something to look at in every direction.

A hotel of this sort wouldn’t be complete without, first thing, an outdoor pool—which this one has, and a spectacular one at that, surrounded by private cabanas and a poolside restaurant. The ‘serious’ restaurants are inside; La Villa Eugenie is the exceedingly formal gastronomic restaurant, and La Rotonde (in the rotunda, imagine that) offers unmatched sea views.