On a summer afternoon in Biarritz the temperature hovers at 97 degrees, but beneath the shade of tamarisk trees and a breeze off the Atlantic Ocean, it’s manageable. Pleasant even. A local artist named Juliette has arranged a palette, tubes of acrylic paint, and brushes on a park bench that faces the same coastline Pablo Picasso painted in 1918 while honeymooning with Olga Khokhlova. Scanning the horizon line, I spot the 19th-century lighthouse he put to canvas in The Bathers. Juliette instructs me to close my eyes and focus on each sense individually—and to maintain that heightened state once my eyes are open. “That’s what painting should feel like,” she says. A bit esoteric, but nevertheless an effective prompt. My subsequent brushstrokes of Biarritz are predictably subpar (Picasso, I am not), but who cares? I am in France and my senses are heightened!
I’ve come to Europe in search of The Lost Generation. Or rather, to trace their steps. This year marks the centennial of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, the 1926 novel that evinced the disillusionment of the expatriate era following The Great War; a period that was also marked by stratospheric creativity. Seeing as I foster similar feelings of disillusionment, and always a deep yearning for nostalgia, when I learned Black Tomato had crafted a travel itinerary around the places and personalities that defined this era, I was on a transatlantic flight faster than you could say une generation perdue.
In the days that followed my arrival, I would be transported to the historic cafés of Montparnasse, to San Sebastián’s cobblestone alleys for pintxos and Basque cider, and to the world’s oldest restaurant in Madrid, where Hemingway’s favorite booth remains in the back corner like a bacchanalian shrine. I would sleep in Grand Dame hotels—each one frequented by the Lost Generation crowd—and I’d round it out with exploration of bookshops, cycling paths, museums, and watering holes. (Lots of watering holes).
Let’s time travel, shall we?
Biarritz
Photo: Gregory Dava
Photo: Gregory Dava
My time in Biarritz is brief but brilliant. After packing up the paintbrushes and bidding au revoir to Juliette, I check into Hôtel du Palais Biarritz. It was originally constructed in 1854 as a summer villa for Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie, but later converted into a hotel. But oh my, does it still resemble an imperial palace. From the regal wrought iron entrance to the marble columned lobby decorated with antique clocks and chandeliers, it’s sumptuous through and through.