A Family AFFAIR

Time stands still in southern France as a father and son reconnect with family haunts and memories close to their hearts.

From my perch overlooking the rolling hills of southern France, childhood memories come flowing back to me. Hiking the Pyrénées Mountains with a tiny packsack on my back, road trips with my family across the belle pays, and the time our Volkswagen minibus went up in smoke by the side of the road (I’ll get to that later).

It’s no exaggeration to say I first visited France before I was born. My mother was seven months pregnant with me—three other little children in tow—when she and my dad packed up the family and crossed the pond in the summer of 1968. An annual family vacation was born. Thirty-nine years later, I’ve come back once again, this time with my father, visiting old family haunts—from charming coastal villages near the Spanish border to medieval fortresses in the midst of the Loire Valley’s famed vineyards two hours south of Paris. The countryside in south-central France smells the same as I remember it. Perhaps it’s the scent of wood burning, the smoke drifting from any number of houses that dot the valley surrounding the ancient windmill my parents bought and restored in 1976. Maybe there’s something more meaningful in this sweet fragrance that lingers, as unique to France as its history. But I’m getting ahead of myself, so let me rewind the tape and start with our arrival last week in Biarritz, a beach town in the southwest of France.

When the Nordic Vikings invaded the region in 840 AD, they probably didn’t imagine what this coastal city would one day become: an international surf and tourism destination for, among others, a great many Norwegians. Over a millen-nium later, after the defeat of the Viking chief by the ancient Basques, Biarritz became a hot spot for the rich and famous, including Empress Eugénie and her husband, Napoleon III, who built a sprawling palace on the beach, which is now a swank hotel.

For the moment, my dad isn’t paying much attention to the breadth of history that permeates every inch of this coastline. He has a nasty infection from a cut on his leg, and an antique coffee table I was in charge of hauling over has gone missing in transit. It’s night when we roam the windswept boardwalk, the coast mad with wind, sending waves lunging toward the rocky coastline. The city, which huddles around a series of crescent bays, shimmers in the night, a luminous beam from the lighthouse sweeping the darkness beyond.

Morning ushers in a dull spring day that shows none of the moodiness on display the previous night. To shake off the jet lag, I slip on my running shoes and go for a jog along the ocean. Like me, the city itself moves slowly, as if having missed its morning coffee. While the street sweepers work, a group of men are half-heartedly building an old merry-goround for tourists that have yet to arrive. The beach in front of Empress Eugénie’s Hôtel du Palais is sparse with sunbathers, though the sea already beckons surfers, who seek the coast’s famous waves.

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