Foodtruck on the beach, meeting place for surfers
Forty five minutes north of Biarritz, car GPS again interrupts our discussion about the origins of surfing in Europe. As indicated, we have just arrived at our destination: ** Hossegor .**
Direct course to the beach along the always busy Paul Lahary Avenue, Basque-French style facades coexist in harmony with the gleaming shop windows of well-known fashion and surf brands.
A group of teenagers, with their boards ingeniously attached to bicycles, they overtake an old Ford pick-up that insists on slowing down traffic: “Take it easy, guys!” , it seems to say. In Hossegor, if people hurry it is because there are good waves.
The pancake flavor freshly made competes with that of the hamburgers. Before reaching the beach we stopped at a foodtruck. waffles and craft beers, fruit smoothies and beautiful people. Marta Lanzetti and Emanuele Costabel are moving their foodtruck through Hossegor. Today they parked in the Dune Boulevard, next to the church renamed as Surf Church.
Richard Ellerington and his family moved from England to carry out this project that combines his passion for the waves with spiritual talks in English and French, simultaneously.
Hosegor, France
Inside, the decoration of the church is very fun and, when there are no meetings, It works as a cafeteria. Here we enjoy an excellent coffee while we resume the conversation about the origins of surfing in Europe.
We decided that possibly the first surf break to Europe dates back to 1956, when Peter Vertel , legendary Hollywood screenwriter and husband of Deborah Kerr, was in Pamplona shooting sequences of the film Party! The Sun Also Rises, based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway.
Viertel had hidden several surfboards between the bulky film crews and, as soon as filming was over, he crossed the border to go to Biarritz, where he knew perfect (and dangerous) tube waves broke.
The young French were fascinated to see the writer riding the waves and, just three years later, the first surf club in France.
Much has been surfed since then. The boards Industry, that allow us to slide on the waves - and on the snowy slopes of the mountains and on the asphalt–, it is increasingly more sophisticated.
And the surf will become olympic sport in japan 2020, although it is not yet decided if the competitions will take place in the sea or in the pool of waves designed by Wave Company, the company of Kelly Slater, the only surfer who has won the **world title of the ASP**, the Professional Surfing Association, eleven times.
There are already many professionals who admit to having found best waves in slater's pool that in many of the competitions international in the ocean.
But the sea belongs to everyone and the quality of the waves of Hossegor has turned this small French town into the european capital of surfing and the stage, along with its neighbors Seignosse and Capbreton, Quiksilver Pro France, one of the competitions star of the international circuit.
Relais du Lac, to sleep in a cozy place with sea views
In Hossegor the beach looks infinite: seven kilometers of golden sand which, in fact, continue without interruption until Mimizan , a hundred kilometers to the north.
With one of the most consistent sand bottoms on the continent, Hossegor offers three surfable peaks: La Nord, La Graviere and La Sud.
It's not uncommon to run into elite surfers, like Jeremy Flores, the latest Billabong champion Pipeline Masters from Hawaii, or Tom Curren, Legendary former champion and resident of Hossegor, who we are lucky enough to see in action on the water, late afternoon.
Even for those who have no intention of putting on the wetsuit, it is a real pleasure walk barefoot along these eternal beaches observing the ancestral sport of the Polynesian kings with the last lights of the day coloring the horizon.
Restaurant of the Quiksilver Boardriders Campus store, in Saint Jean de Luz
The next morning, after taking advantage of the first early waves, we make an excursion to Saint John of Luz, 40 minutes to the south, to visit the place where much of the aesthetic universe of surfing: the Quiksilver Campus.
Here, in a wooden building with huge windows, the latest collections of clothing and accessories of the brand are created.
Connected to each other by walkways, the different departments form a kind of bow around a central building, the Agora.
There are playgrounds, a skatepark, large dining rooms bathed in the light of the Landes and young people of different nationalities moving from one place to another with their laptops.
A cyclist surfer strolling on the beach
Valerie Hell, designer of Roxy, Quiksilver's women's brand, She explains to us what the work is like on each new collection: “In teams, usually two people from different departments, we travel to destinations with a marked personality aesthetic in any corner of the world.
Then we all got together to start designing with the needs of Roxy surfers very much in mind. They are the new it girls of the sector and those who wear clothes to the limit”.
Next to the offices is one of its main stores: Boardriders Campus. It is almost impossible to traverse more than 750 m2 without being tempted to buy something.
Sitting on the terrace of the cafeteria, between Iberian hams and photographs of athletic surfers, We return to the original conversation of the trip.
But now with one more interesting fact: the first surfboard to enter Europe arrived under the arm of the Alava Ignatius of Aranda, consul in Hawaii between 1911 and 1914.