Aquitaine is a vast and varied region of France, spreading over the South West of the country, stretching as far as the Spanish borders in the West and incorporating the mountains of the Pyrenees to the East. It includes the verdant countryside of the Dordogne and the wine-rich Bordeaux in the North.

With all this variety, it has a great deal to offer the visitor or resident, with an enormous amount of history, reflected in its stunning and diverse architecture, to say nothing of its influences from the Spanish and the Basques, manifesting itself in the lifestyle, music, food and traditions of the region.

Aquitaine is probably most famous for its dramatic coastline and famous seaside resorts of Biarritz and St Jean-de-Luz, internationally renowned for their surf and reefs for diving and with the added benefit of being a short distance from the mountains and their surrounding picturesque villages and countryside. This part of Aquitaine is known as the ‘Cote Basque’ and is very different from its glamorous cousin, the Cote d’Azur.

Because of its Spanish and Basque influence (you are a footstep away from Bilbao and the magnificent St Sebastian here), you will find a much more earthy and laid back way of life compared to that of the somewhat more flashy Cote d’Azur, but it has just as much of a glamorous past, with Napoleon building a palace in Biarritz for his wife, the Empress Eugenie; indeed it was the place for the ‘beautiful’ people of the Belle Époque to take their holidays, benefiting from the health giving aspects of the climate and bracing Atlantic Ocean.

In the 1950s Biarritz was a holiday destination for the likes of Rita Hayworth and Frank Sinatra and Cadillac cars even named one of their new cars ‘The Biarritz’. There are still spas and thalasso therapy centres all along the coast to be enjoyed at very reasonable rates (particularly compared to the Cote d’Azur) and the area is also famous for its golf courses, including the second oldest course in France.

St Jean-de-Luz, further along the coast, towards Spain, is slightly quieter than Biarritz and with a slightly less splendid history, but is now ever growing in popularity with tourists, particularly the Spanish and French, as well as the army of surfers who come every year to catch the famous surf, even during the winter months. The food here, particularly the seafood, is famous across France.

Because of all the benefits this region has to offer, the French in particular, but, increasingly international holiday–makers, are choosing to visit and buy second homes in Aquitaine rather than the Cote d’Azur, partly because it is somewhat easier on the pocket, but also there is a sense that the Cote d’Azur has rather had its day and people are searching for a more authentic lifestyle, to say nothing of the lower cost and better standard of living. Why not come and explore for yourself?