A Day at the Seaside

We caught a morning train to Arcachon. What a lovely little seaside town it is! It’s also very smart and there are posters to warn that topless people (whatever their gender!) will be fined. We had breakfast sitting in the shade outside a café decorated with flowers, then wandered through the market where James bought me a sundress, a beach bag and a towel for the beach. But before swimming in the sea we spontaneously jumped onto a ferry which took us across to the peninsula of Cap Ferret. On the way we got an excellent view of the famous Dune du Pilat; basically a really massive pile of sand. The pretty seaside village of Cap Ferret is even more upmarket than Arcachon, and it has lots of oyster beds on the seashore. We walked along the front and had cake and ice cream at the delightful but expensive Frédélian Restaurant. By this time it was very, very hot, and the sea breeze was like a hot hairdryer. After a refreshing drink beside the pier we caught the ferry back to Arcachon. There was a long queue of day-trippers heading back so there were extra ferries running, which was very helpful. James found himself a bench to sit on and read his book, under the shade of one of the huge, mushroom shaped pine trees that line the promenade in Arcachon. And now arrived the highlight of my day; a swim in the sea! It was very busy in the supervised area of the beach; lots of families with sunshades and towels, but it didn’t matter because there was plenty of room in the sea! The sea was like a warm bath but it was cooler than the air temperature and it was absolutely idyllic swimming about in the gentle waves from the many boats. Eventually I reluctantly left the water and used one of the beach showers to remove most of the salt from my body. I dried off so quickly in the heat that I barely needed my towel! We had dinner in one of the beachfront restaurants, watching the waves lapping in the sand. We caught the 9.05 p.m. train back to Bordeaux, which takes about 50 minutes. By the time we got back to the hotel it was dark and we had showers and went straight to bed, exhausted.