Dunas de Pyla
France St Jean De Luz (day 194)
Arriving in St Jean, we weren’t sure about the camping aire as it was sandwiched between a main railway line and a busy road, but it ended up being a very good place to visit with a busy town square and sandy long beach. Everybody had descended upon the town because of the long weekend and V.E. Day which is a national holiday in France. We had a stroll along the promenade and were staring at the ice cream stalls - at the ices and the prices, “ouch! we are in France; 4€ for a cone “ . We went back to the van to make a meal and sit and watch the sudden downpour of rain, luckily we had just missed, I hope this isn’t going to be a trend in France.
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| Biarritz Harbour |
Biarritz (day 195)
We arrived in Biarritz on V.E. day, apparently Biarritz was the place to be seen in, in the 20s & 30s. It still has an exclusive feel to it, the town was busy with tourists mostly French making the most of the warm weather & the day off. You can clearly see the original part of Biarritz with its walled marina to protect it from the full force of the Atlantic, I can’t help wondering what it looked like with German E-boats moored up during the war. Back from the marina are the old fisherman’s cottages and then to the side the town square dominated by the church. There are lots of restaurants’ with their tables & chairs taking up a good proportion of the old square.
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| The Portuguese Immigrants Procession |
Ondres, Capbreton, Vieux Bourcau, Mimizan, Gastes & Ste Eulalie-en-born. (day 196-202)
The next few days we travelled up the coast through the national park area of Des Landes De Gascogne, stopping at various places beach resorts along the way. We decided to travel towards one of the many lakes in the area and stumbled across a little place called Sante Eulalie-en-Born, which had an Aire on lake Biscarrosse et de Parentis. We stayed for 4 days, the weather was exceptional at times reaching temps of 38ᵒ. At the camp spot we met up again with our travelling friends, Mick & Sharron, we indulge in some local wine and a great cider from Normandy. Mick & Sharron cooked us a great Sunday lunch; al fresco, while we caught up on each other’s travels over the previous 6 months. On the Sunday there were parades and celebrations, for the Portuguese immigrants, who made there way over to France in the 70's.
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| The bunkers on Ondres Beach |
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| The Aire at Ste Eulalie de Borne |
After leaving the lake, we visited Dunas de Pyla, (as suggested by Loz) the largest sand dune in Europe. We climbed to the top and walked along the ridge of the dune, it was quite impressive. The only problem was that when we got to the top and started to take some pictures we realised that we (Si) hadn't put the memory stick back in the camera and there was no way I was climbing back down again! - so thanks to Mick and Sharon for supplying us with pictures. The dune has a volume of about 60,000,000 m³, measuring around 500 m wide from east to west and 2.7 km in length from north to south. Its height is 108 metres above sea level.
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| It was a long way up Andernos le Bains (day 202 -205) |
Round the corner from the Dune is Arcachon Basin, known for is famous Oysters, we stayed at an aire in Andrenos les Bains. It was by the side of the harbour, amongst the fisher mans huts, many have now been made into restaurants. We cycled around the pretty tourist town and along the many cycles routes in the surrounding area. Before living we went for a meal, a belated birthday celebration, we didn't fancy the oysters, opted for the mussels and fish platter instead.
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| One of the lovely fish restaurants on the harbour |
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| Pier at Andernos |
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| Si enjoying his fish lunch |
