Tuesday August 24th Arcachon, France
Today we had breakfast of yogurt, baguette, jam, cheese, tea and coffee on our balcony. After that we packed a picnic lunch and lots of water in a backpack and headed out to see the sand dunes south of town.
On the way we stopped at the train station to get seat reservations back to Paris on Friday. This time it cost 18 euros each whether we went 1st or 2nd class. Naturally we chose 1st class and got reservations at 11:26 to Bordeaux where we will wait about 35 minutes before boarding the TGV train to Paris. We’ll arrive in Paris at 4:00 pm.
Then we started our walk to the south. I had understood the young woman in the tourism office to say that it was about 5 km. I must have misunderstood because it’s a lot farther than that. We walked from the train station for about 2 hours until we got to Pyla sur Mer from where we could see the sand dunes about another 2 or 3 km away. Luckily it was a beautiful day that was not too hot but still that was close enough. They really are huge dunes, over 100 m high. We could see some people hang gliding off the top of them toward the sea. It was a great walk down there. We saw lots of old resort type homes and quiet streets. Plus the beach had only one short gap that we saw. Otherwise it is immense. This is the biggest, widest beach that we have ever seen, and we’ve seen some big beaches in the Caribbean. It’s really pretty here - the sort of place you would think of coming back to except that there are so many other places in the world to see.
The tide was low this morning and there were a lot of people out in the shallows with buckets collecting shellfish. There are also small pleasure boats moored all over the place. It doesn’t seem crazily busy here because the spaces are so big but still there are a lot of people who enjoy vacations here.
We had a picnic lunch overlooking the sea in a big park just southwest of town. There are lots of big pine trees in the sandy soil here so it was nice for shade. We got back to our hotel about 3:30 and went to buy more supplies after a short cool-down (that is, a beer for me). We’ll probably have a quiet evening with maybe a walk along the promenade at sunset. We won’t go out to eat tonight. We have some things so we can enjoy a light meal on our balcony.
Tomorrow we’ll probably just go to the beach for the morning and be lazy.
Wednesday morning, August 25th, Arcachon
We got some more great news from Zack and Annie in our emails this morning. They both made the Canadian Freestyle Kayak Team at the national team trials in Alberta. Zack placed 4th overall in the men’s and Annie placed 3rd in the women’s, putting them both on the team. Being 3rd or 4th in Canada is fantastic since Canada is regarded as the team to beat in the world. Congratulations to them both!
In more mundane news, we did go for a walk along the promenade at sunset last night. It was cool but beautiful with a full moon coming up. Today is supposed to be sunny and 27 so we’re just on our way out to the bakery down the street for something unhealthy to enjoy on our balcony for breakfast before hitting the beach.
Thursday morning, August 26th, Arcachon
We had a great day at the beach yesterday. After breakfast on our balcony, we sunscreened and walked across the street to the beach. There were a few people on the beach but not many. We parked our towels and just laid around and read the books that we’ve been dragging around Europe for the past 2 months.
Around 1:00 pm we came back to our room for a quick shower and then went down the street for mussels and grilled fish again. Then it was back to the beach for another couple of hours. After a light dinner on our balcony we went walking along the beach and the promenade under the full moon. Relaxing day.
This morning looks sunny and is supposed to be 30 again. The weather here has been perfect. We’re soon off to the bakery again for croissants or something else unhealthy. We do have orange juice and yogurt in the mini fridge in our room so we’re not totally over to the dark side. We also have a kettle and coffee so breakfast on our balcony is really nice and really cheap.
Thursday afternoon, August 26th, Arcachon
Today was more or less a repeat of yesterday with a nice relaxing time on the beach. And once again we went for mussels and grilled fish (ray, I think) for a late lunch. That stuff is addicting.
Tomorrow we’ll have breakfast on our balcony, get packed and check out sometime after 10. It’s about 25-30 minutes to walk to the train station and then we’re off to Paris on our last major train ride.
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