Sam Partaix, the inofficial mayor of Biarritz, returned from a trip to Morocco just in time to spend a weekend with us and Axel Cruysberghs, who had previously stayed at Milou’s but made the move to Sam’s couch to be closer to the central Biarritz area for a change.
Fs Blunt
We start the weekend with a healthy little breakfast including chicken soup and “œuf à la coque” and plot our activities for the coming days while we dip bread slices into the perfectly boiled eggs. Our goal is to go skate, for sure, but also get a good feel of what life is like around here. The swell doesn’t look too good for the next few days, so surfing is off the menu. There’s still a surf competition going on that we may as well head to, and we’ll get to stroll through the city with Maurice, Sam’s massive but cute 2-year-old dog.
Sam: “The competition’s called the ‘Maider Arosteguy’ competition. It’s been on for 39 years. It’s a really classic competition. All the local kids doing it, the local friends. It's really good to have a little check. Also, we had ice cream on the way there.”
Sunset beers are a must, but we end up not really getting around to seeing it because we’re too distracted with a game of pétanque at the local bar.
Sam: “When we are here, in summertime, we always go watch the sunset and we always play pétanque. It's like the French thing. But it's pretty fun with friends because everyone can play. It's easy. Plus, a little drink.”
Pétanque will not stay the only ball-related pastime. We end up at the golf course’s driving range, sending off some balls with Sam’s oddly-shaped and oddly-sized collection of drivers and learn that maybe golf is not quite as easy as we had assumed. At least Sam went all in, making sure at least one of us looked the part.
Feeble to fakie
Sam: “My golf clubs are really old. I found them in the trash. I even got a wooden one.”
Axel: “So maybe we are actually good—it’s just the clubs that aren’t there. One of them is surely for a two-metre-tall person, and we're both not two meters. Either way, we need to go to the coaching room. But it was fun though. We had a good laugh.”
Two spots that are high on the list for the weekend are “Cité de l’Océan” and the famous bunker spot, both of which look equally as photogenic as they are hard to skate.
Sam: “Cité de l'Océan is like a museum. It's about the beach, but it's more like a digital museum, so a lot of screens. But actually, I’ve never been inside the museum. I’ve only been outside on this crazy sculpture building.”
Axel: “It's crazy, this spot. I've only seen it in photos and videos, but it's insane. Massive transition, cobblestone with a pool.”
Sam: “It looks really good. It's really photogenic. We love to go there because it's quiet. We can do what we want over there. People who are working at the restaurant there are nice.”
Axel: “It's a bit surprising. They let you go on top, on the roof, basically.”
Sam: “That's crazy. Yeah. Nobody gives a shit. I mean, it became like the spot of Biarritz because it's really photogenic, and a lot of teams, when they pass by Biarritz, they stop by the museum. So, yeah. It makes sense. Yeah. It's really nice, really cute.”
Axel: “The bowl is actually hard to skate because it's on an incline. But then you get all the speed going down to the small section, and then to actually go to the big section, you have to really work. There's some holes and some concrete missing. It's not that easy to skate, but the way it looks and everything makes up for that. It's worth it.”
While we’re skating the bowl, trying to make some sort of doubles-photo work, Robin Bollian pays us a visit and, without much warm-up, flexes a few grabs so high up over the deep end, it should not be physically possible.
Skate spot number two is the bunker spot, which used to be just a quarterpipe built by Romain Covollant, but now has a few additions that do not really add to the spot, if you ask most locals' opinion, but let’s not get into that.
Sam: “The bunker is from the Second World War. There are bunkers pretty much everywhere on the coast. Normally, it's just a big concrete thing with a little window. This one is actually really nice, because nobody's going there. You have the best view of the Arets, of the Côte Basque and the mountain.”
Axel: “You have to climb up one fence, a little hike, but it's not too complicated.”
While Axel has trouble remembering most of the things we got up to during the weekend, he does have this to say about the whole experience: “Sam’s a great host. He lets me stay in his room, we trade between bed and couch, he cooks me food. Biarritz is not too crazy but it's crazy enough. There's the beach, there's mountains. It’s good for skating, good for biking. Nice people. There are dogs, too. Lots of dogs, and I like that they can run free. It's so nice. Imagine you're a dog and you can just... you don't need to be on the leash, you can go on the beach. It's so nice, I think it's great.”
Now how’s that for a closing statement?
