I first went to Saint-Jean-de-Luz three years ago. My son, Luca, had just been born and he travelled in a basket with my husband and I four hours down from Paris on the TGV. We arrived in the morning, and sat in a cafe outside the 13th-century church of St John the Baptist where Louis XIV married Marie-Thérèse of Austria in 1660.
White trees lined the square. We sat drinking coffee with brandy and soaking up the sun, happy that it was grey and rainy in Paris. There was the distant sound of the Chants Basque, the choir. It was as though angels had arrived in that square. I was enchanted, besotted. I had that strange feeling you get when you know you have found your place.
Saint-Jean-de-Luz is on the Côte Basque and northern side of the Nivelle river, and it is so small, you can walk everywhere. The harbour leads out to the beach. After our coffee, we picked the nearest narrow lane and walked slowly. The beach was full of people unpacking picnics.
I love the long summer days on this stretch of the Atlantic, but my favourite time of year is in winter or very early spring. "September and October are the best months," the locals will tell you. In winter, you find the waves brackish and grey but you also find the brave eccentrics who dare to swim.
There are wonderful hidden corners in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, winding lanes that take you to whitewashed houses and tiny shops. There is a real find, an antique linen shop called Iban on the completely unpronounceable lane of Itsas Heguia where I bought lace cotton blouses from the 1940s.
You can buy handmade espadrilles on the Rue Gambetta, which is the pedestrian walkway that runs from the centre of town to the church. You can eat tapas or buy Linge Basque, the pastel-striped tablecloths, at Jean-Vier. You can visit an artisan called Pierre Ibaialde who makes homemade foie gras and seasons jambons at his atelier.
But usually, I go for thalassotherapy. In that uniquely French way, until a few years ago you could get a prescription from your doctor and the state medical system would pay for it. These days, sadly, you pay for yourself, and while it is not cheap, it is something I try to do every year.
Thalassotherapy is treatment with salt water, seaweed and algae and works for anything from migraines to rheumatism to sprained ankles. You plunge into salt water pools with jets that massage you underwater. You eat healthy food and, if you want you can drink the wonderful wines, but I choose to follow the "equilibre" menu which means drinking gallons of slightly salted mineral water. At the close of day, you feel remarkably tired but remarkably well.
Earlier this year the Grand Hotel opened a thalassotherapy centre. The Grand is a place I have passed for the past three years on my morning walks: a belle époque, pink wedding cake of a building perched on the edge of the white sandy beach. There is a wide terrace with white wicker furniture and rooms that overlook the Atlantic. I imagined Russian princesses escaping the revolution and coming there to live forever.
We arrived in the rain in early spring, and funnily enough, the rain did not matter.
"It's so much prettier in the sunshine," the manager of the thalassotherapy centre fretted, but I loved it. I spent my mornings walking on the beach with an umbrella, breathing deeply the salted air. In the afternoons, after the delicious lunch, I had my soins - treatments. Then I rested, walked again on the beach, and had dinner. Then I slept.
What I liked most is that the hotel is unpretentious. It's smallish, styled with a kind of turn-of-the-century English air. It feels rather like someone's home. My husband, who hates fancy hotels, loved it. He did not have to wear a tie. In fact, I don't think he took off his bathrobe.
The restaurant is cozy even if the chef has one Michelin star. He is not grand and snotty. He buys everything locally and then prepares it in an open kitchen - you can watch him grill the meat and stuff the vegetarian ravioli in front of you. My husband ate foie gras and cheek of beef, but I had lobster spring rolls, sautéed sea bass and jellied oysters and desserts made from pineapple and spun sugar. All of the fish - the bass, the pink salmon, the mackerel - were caught outside the door.
Even if you don't stay at the Grand Hotel you can still come for the treatments. There are smaller hotels lining the beach and in the town. The Madison, for instance, on the main drag, has clean rooms with lots of beds in interlocking rooms for large families on budgets. The cafes have tapas and cheap wine, you can have a good few days without spending a fortune.
There is a larger, more family style thalasso centre called the Hélianthal down the beach where I have also stayed and loved, though you don't get the same pampering you do at the Grand. But you pay a lot less, and the staff are wonderfully kind and take good care of you.
If, for some strange reason, you are tired of the sea, you can head out in a hired car for the mountains and pass through the green Basque villages. You can catch a boat to Spain. You could even drive down to Bilbao to see the Guggenheim museum.
I admit I did none of these things. I began reading novels that had sat by my bedside. I drank tisanes made from chestnut trees. I ate the extraordinary food and swam in the salted pool and was wrapped in algae and mud. At night, I fell asleep with the windows open and the sound of the Atlantic. I felt like a convalescing, but happy Anita Brookner character.
On my last day, I woke early as usual and headed to the beach. I left my breakfast tray on my bed and left my shoes in the cupboard. The sun was poking through the clouds and I could see the mist rising. The fishermen were in their boats. A few mothers were playing with their children in the sand.
And there, far out, so far I could barely see her little head, was a woman swimming backstroke and singing at the top of her lungs. The first day that I arrived at the Grand, I had sat and watched her swim, envying her for what I imagined her life to be - free and easy.
But after three days of the good life in Saint-Jean-de-Luz - and that is all it took - I did not envy her any more. After all those salt water baths, all those mud wraps, all that good food and deep sleep, I felt as free as she was. Almost.
Way to go
Getting there
Saint-Jean-de-Luz is on the main Paris-Madrid line with five high-speed TGV trains a day (0970 5848848, raileurope.com).
Where to stay
The Grand Hotel (0033 5 5926 3536, luzgrandhotel.fr) doubles €292 for two nights at weekends, €190 midweek, B&B. Hélianthal Saint-Jean-de-Luz (+5 5951 5151, helianthal.fr) from €96 per night. Hotel Madison (+5 5926 3502, madison.fr) doubles from €65. Hotel Magenta and Hotel Prado (+5 5951 0371, hotel-prado-magenta.com) doubles from €52 B&B. Hotel Les Almadies (+ 5 5985 3448, hotel-les-almadies.com) from €100.
