The Rocher de la Vierge is one of the emblems of the town of Biarritz. It was on the initiative of Napoleon III that this rock was carved out to serve as an anchorage point for a breakwater protecting a harbour refuge. It owes its current name to the statue of the Virgin Mary erected on its summit in 1865.
It was intended to welcome sailors returning to port. The old wooden footbridge linking it to the shore has disappeared, to be replaced by a steel footbridge built by Eiffel, which is more resistant to the repeated assaults of the waves. All that remains today is this rock.