The beaches of Bidart welcome you throughout the summer for your swimming and tanning sessions☀️. In order to have the best possible experience, here is all the information you need for a successful swim!
Beach signage
From the start of the season, flags (aka flames) are there to announce the color! Here is the explanation of each flag color that you can find on our 6 supervised beaches.
Information panels are visible at the entrance to each beach so that everyone can find their way. Here is a small example below with our beautiful beach of Parlementia (yes Parlementia is located in the town of Bidart and not in Guethary).
Daily monitoring
Bathing surveillance
Safety is a priority! In season, our 6 beaches are supervised by our teams lifeguards (alias MNS in common jargon) who keep an alert lookout every day to monitor the beaches and thus guarantee you good memories. Find the correct monitoring times and periods here !
Moreover, do you know the rules of swimming and the practice of the discipline of Coastal Rescue at Sea? We tell you more in the blog post dedicated to the Bidart Océan Club, the coastal rescue club of Bidart!
From monitoring to bathing water quality
And what about bathing waters? They are checked and analyzed daily! This is also security.
In fact, the Basque Country Urban Community, in close collaboration with the municipality, monitors bathing areas in the early morning. It includes, among other things, bathing water analyses.
In parallel, theARS carries out spot checks on all the beaches.
This information is also relayed on the municipality’s website: www.bidart.fr
Our tip : Information relating to swimming conditions (color of the flag and opening of the beach) on all the beaches of the Basque Coast is broadcast in real time on the free application Kalilo 📱. (Available on Google Play and on theApple Store).
Blue Flag: the guarantee of a European Label
The Blue Flag is the guarantee of finding clean beaches and benefiting from excellent quality bathing water. It is a system promoting sustainable tourism and promoting environmental awareness actions. In 2024, five of our six beaches will be labeled: Parlementia beach, central beach, Erretegia beach, Royal Pavilion beach and Ilbarritz beach.
Where is the beach?
And if Bidart has the most beautiful beaches on the Basque Coast (yes, we are a bit chauvinistic), we are proud of their diversity! Whether they are framed by cliffs, in the immediate vicinity of a parking area, family-friendly, more confidential, covered at high tide, magnificent at low tide, easy to access, difficult to reach, they are all worth the detour 🏖️!
To find out a little more about our beaches, we present them to you from north to south, all you have to do is make your choice (or not)!
It is the northernmost beach in Bidart, and a stone's throw from Biarritz, it is overlooked by its emblematic castle.
Very beautiful and easy to access with its nearby parking lots, at low tide, it reveals rocky areas which enhance it.
The wildest and largest of Bidart's beaches. It is difficult to access and has no parking. You have to take a long path at the end of a dead end to get there.
It owes its name to the beautiful house which overlooks it, built for the Queen Nathalie of Serbia. The estate was also a casino and tea room during the “crazy years” 🍵.
Located below the magnificent Erretegia cirque, qualified as a Sensitive Natural Area, it is also the starting point of the Coastal path.
She benefited from a plan of renaturation in order to erase the transformations made by man a few decades ago to make it more conducive to tourist exploitation.
The concept: eliminate roads and invasive exotic plants, adapt to climate change and let local nature regain its rights and promote the development of biodiversity.
In the heart of the village, it is the meeting place for families and surfers. Its almost century-old dike makes it recognizable among 1000. It is reduced at high tide, but you can still enjoy its promenade and the terrace of the snack restaurant Anaia open all day as well as the emblematic restaurant La Tantina de la Playa.
Center beach has a special place for bidartars with its fine sand and superb green cliffs which dominate it.
Attractive and easy to access, it is located close to numerous shops and restaurants and is visible from the main road. It is located at the mouth of the eponymous river and also marks the starting point of the Greenway of Uhabia. The cycle path and its pedestrian path cross Bidart along the river 🚲.
It is also labeled Handicap and offers a tiralos service reservation. Besides, Timothee our accessibility ambassador tested it for you! Click here to discover his feedback!
South of Bidart and close to the village of Guéthary, it is known to surfers for its legendary wave.
It is surrounded by rocky areas which are real small swimming pools at low tide! It's also a perfect place to look for crabs in the rocks or admire the surfers 🦀🏄♂️.
Our beaches are beautiful, and to preserve them, the municipality has set up a responsible cleaning system that varies according to the season!
Clean beaches operation
Our coastline is an asset but it remains fragile and preserving it is a priority. The municipality attaches particular importance to cleaning the beaches but not just any way, we explain everything to you 👇
- Out of season: weekly manual cleaning
the 1er October to May 31, on Fridays between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m., two teams divide up the beaches on our coast. Equipped with light collection vehicles, they travel the beaches on foot to manually pick up waste from human consumption. Natural elements, such as wood and algae, are left on the sand.
- In summer: daily mechanical cleaning
the 1er June to September 30, every day between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m., mechanical collection using tractors equipped with harrows and a screener is maintained due to the high number of visitors to the beaches. In addition, the teams also collect trash and remove sand from public spaces (notably access ramps and pathways).
The waste collected is collected in a sorting center then sent to various recycling channels ♻️.
- Tidal ferries available to walkers
A little over 3 years ago, the town experimented with the first tidal ferries on the Basque Coast. Given their success, they are repeated every year out of season on the beaches of Uhabia, Erretegia, Pavillon Royal and Ilbarritz. They allow everyone to collect waste brought by the tides and participate in the cleanup. They are then emptied by the association ADELI (integration site workshop).
Speaking of tide… It's always useful to know when it's high, or when it's low! And for that, nothing beats a little tide calendar ! But you can always watch what it looks like, via our live cam from the Center Beach!
Be careful, our beaches change with the rhythm of the tides, which sometimes lead to the formation of formidable baïnes...
But in fact ? What is a bath? How and why is it formed? What are the risks for swimming? Answers provided in video by theNew Aquitaine Coast Observatory !
