Thalasso de Biarritz

Thalasso de Biarritz in Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, offers iodine-rich Atlantic thalassotherapy in the city that invented European surfing culture—Biarritz, where the Basque bodyboarders of the nineteenth century and the California surfers of the 1950s and 60s who discovered the powerful Atlantic waves of the Grande Plage and the Côte des Basques created the surf culture that spread from this Basque resort across Europe and made France the most important surfing nation in Europe. The iodine-rich Bay of Biscay waters used in the treatments carry the exceptional mineral richness and oxygen concentration of Atlantic deep water, where the gulf currents that warm Biarritz's coast also deliver the trace minerals and biological productivity that make Bay of Biscay seawater particularly effective for thalassotherapy. The surf capital heritage, the Belle Époque imperial resort architecture (Empress Eugénie established Biarritz as the resort of the French imperial court in the 1850s), and the Atlantic thalassotherapy tradition create a Biarritz experience of exceptional athletic, historical, and therapeutic coastal richness.