Five-star hotels in Anglet: Lac de Brindos on the Basque coast

Anglet between Biarritz and Bayonne

Anglet is the middle town of the Bayonne-Anglet-Biarritz conurbation, often shortened to BAB, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. The commune covers about 27 km² and had 43,271 residents in 2023.

What sets it apart is its shoreline. Anglet faces the Atlantic along about 4.5 km of sand, from La Barre at the mouth of the Adour in the north to the tip of Cap Saint-Martin in the south, with pine forest behind the dunes. The Adour has only reached the sea here since 1578, when the engineer Louis de Foix, commissioned by Charles IX, diverted it from its old outlet at Vieux-Boucau in the Landes.

The seaside story is older than Biarritz's fame. Anglet's tourist office dates the first sea baths on the Basque coast to 1750 at the Chambre d'Amour, and a romantic tale published by Étienne de Jouy in 1817 turned the cave there into a fashionable excursion. The town was classified as a resort in 1929.

For anyone comparing Anglet hotels with addresses in Biarritz, the practical point is that Anglet sits directly between Biarritz and Bayonne, so the choice is less about distance than about setting: lake, forest or ocean.

Brindos Lac et Château: a lake rather than the sea

Brindos Lac et Château stands at 1 Allée du Château, on the outskirts of Anglet towards Biarritz. The Atout France register gives it 39 rooms and a five-star classification dated 2 May 2022.

The château faces the lake, and its rooms and suites, like the lodges, are described as quiet and comfortable, with lake views. The distinctive element is the set of floating lodges on the water itself. The Pyrénées-Atlantiques tourism board describes the lake as one of the largest private lakes in France.

Dining follows the same orientation. The restaurant celebrates French cuisine and Basque terroir, renews its menu with the seasons and serves either in the dining room or on a terrace facing the lake. The château bar pours seasonal signature cocktails and hosts live concerts through the year, while a pontoon bar sits directly on the lake with cocktails and dishes to share. The hotel also describes a terrace bar and a poolside bar.

The building has its own place in local heritage. Anglet's tourist office lists the Château de Brindos as a Hispano-Moorish house designed in the 1930s by the Biarritz architect William Marcel.

Anglet hotels by area: Brindos, Chiberta and the beaches

Anglet is spread out and has no single centre on the water, so the main decision for anyone looking at Anglet hotels is which landscape to wake up to. Brindos lies inland, towards Biarritz and close to the airport.

Chiberta and the Pignada forest spread between the ocean and the Adour; the golf course gave the district its reputation in the 1930s. La Barre, at the mouth of the Adour, combines a beach with the Parc Izadia, an ice rink and a skate park. At the southern end lie the Chambre d'Amour and the Sables d'Or, closest to Biarritz.

Eleven beaches and eleven surf spots

From north to south, Anglet's 11 beaches are La Barre, Les Cavaliers, Les Dunes, L'Océan, La Madrague, La Petite Madrague, Les Corsaires, Marinella, Les Sables d'Or, Le Club and the Petite Chambre d'Amour. The tourist office sorts them by character: L'Océan, Les Dunes and Les Cavaliers keep a more natural edge, the two Madragues draw a fashionable crowd, Marinella and Les Corsaires a younger one, while the Sables d'Or, Le Club, the Petite Chambre d'Amour and La Barre suit families.

Eight beaches are supervised, with 90 lifeguards on duty in summer; in 2026 the longest season, at Marinella, runs from 4 April to 1 November. Seven of the eight supervised beaches held the Blue Flag in 2026.

Surfing shapes the town's identity, and the tourist office counts eleven surf spots. La Barre has been a reference since the 1960s and works mainly at low tide, Les Cavaliers is known for waves of international standard, and the Sables d'Or hosts the Pro Anglet. The tourist office's timeline credits Jacques Rott with the first board made in France, in 1953, and Joël de Rosnay with founding a surfing club at the Chambre d'Amour in 1963; renamed the Surf Club de France the following year, it was joined in 1969 by the O'Surf Club de la Petite Chambre d'Amour. Next door in Biarritz, a Californian visitor riding a board in 1957 is recognised as the first surfing in Europe.

The Anglet Surf Avenue, inaugurated on 10 July 2018, is a walk of fame with the footprints of surfers such as Kelly Slater, Tom Curren, Nat Young, Mick Fanning and Maritxu Darrigrand.

The Pignada and Chiberta forest

Anglet's motto, as quoted by its tourist office, translates as "the sea and the pine forest to help me", and the forest half of it is easy to find. Between the ocean and the Adour, the maritime pines of the Pignada, also called the Chiberta forest, began as a defence against sand: the tourist office credits Napoleon III with funding the planting of 300 hectares of maritime pines to stop the dunes advancing.

The Pignada covers about 220 hectares today, and pine woods, including the Lazaret, still account for about a tenth of the commune. The Voie verte du Pignada, a 7 km cycling loop starting from Avenue de Montbrun, runs through the forest, opens views towards the lake of Chiberta, passes Moorish, Art Deco and neo-Basque villas and skirts two golf courses, with detours to the ocean beaches.

Along the sea, the Promenade Littorale follows the whole line of beaches. At La Barre, the Parc Izadia offers naturalist activities on local flora and fauna. Golfers know the district for the Golf de Chiberta, created in the late 1920s to a design by the English architect Tom Simpson.

Getting to Anglet: airport, stations and roads

Anglet has its own airport: Biarritz Pays Basque Airport lies within the commune, and more than three-quarters of its runway is on Anglet land. As of 2026, the tourist office lists year-round flights to Paris and Lyon and, from the UK, Ryanair's year-round route to London Stansted; easyJet's London Gatwick service is one of the seasonal routes. The Pyrénées-Atlantiques tourism board puts Brindos Lac et Château about three minutes from the airport.

By train, TGV and regional services stop at Bayonne and Biarritz stations, both about 4 km from the centre of Anglet. By road, the A63 motorway links Bordeaux with the Spanish border and the A64 comes in from Toulouse. Sailors can use the Brise-Lames marina on the Adour, which has 425 berths.

Before booking, our guide on how to check a hotel's location and transport explains what to confirm about transfers from an airport or station.

Biarritz, Bayonne and the wider south-west

Biarritz is Anglet's immediate neighbour. Its fame dates from 1854, when Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III, built a residence on the beach, and its Cité de l'Océan, a museum of the ocean and surfing, opened in 2011. Travellers searching for luxury hotels in Biarritz or hotels near Biarritz will find that Anglet puts the same coast, airport and stations within easy reach. The Spanish border lies about 35 km from Biarritz.

Bayonne stands about 6 km inland at the confluence of the Nive and the Adour. Grand Bayonne and Petit Bayonne face each other across the Nive; the Sainte-Marie cathedral has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1998 as part of the pilgrim routes to Santiago de Compostela in France, and the Musée Basque covers regional culture. The city's chocolate tradition goes back to Jewish families from Spain and Portugal who brought chocolate with them. The Fêtes de Bayonne, first held in 1932, fill five days and nights in July.

Further afield, Anglet makes a natural start or finish for a south-west road trip. Heading north, the A63 and then the A660 lead to Arcachon, where a sheltered tidal bay and the Dune du Pilat replace the open surf. Heading inland, the A64 towards Toulouse is the road to Albi, whose brick cathedral and Toulouse-Lautrec collection make a complete change from the ocean.

When to go: from spring flowers to winter swell

Anglet works as a year-round town rather than a summer-only resort. In spring, the tourist office describes mimosa, broom and tamarisk in flower, the Parc Izadia reopening, the beaches being reshaped and the lifeguards returning one beach at a time.

Summer opens with the Nocturnes de la Chambre d'Amour, a music programme at the end of June, and peaks with the Anglet Surf de Nuit, held every August at the Sables d'Or. Created in 1994, it has teams of surfers competing after dark on illuminated boards.

October brings what the tourist office calls an Indian summer, with surf schools still active and the swell building as autumn goes on. In winter the beach huts are dismantled and the beaches show their wilder side to wind, storms and tides, while the town's contemporary art centre, which exhibits at the Villa Beatrix Enea, prepares new exhibitions.