The Witty Traveller Blog: A Day By The Seaside

Last week, we discovered Arcachon, a beautiful seaside village located on a bay. It is west of Bordeaux and about an hour's ride on the train from Bordeaux. It was a totally random town and didn’t know what to expect but it turned out to be amazing. Arcachon is a beach resort, not too touristy, and we were able to relax and enjoy the sun and sand. The town was centered on the “bassin de arcachon” and overlooked a bay that was fed from the Atlantic Ocean.

We had just missed the last ferry out to Cap Ferret, so we spent the day walking around on the board walk looking at all the beautiful houses, apartments, more architecture, as well as the first French beaches. Well, the first beaches we have seen in Europe really. They were nice, but South Coast beaches in New South Wales are still much better.

In the evening we were invited to a dinner party along with Steph to her friends' apartment in Arcachon, it was here that we got to taste the most 'cheese-tastic' Camembert fondue. They basically take the camembert and wrap it in foil and then put it in the oven. You then carefully unwrap and skim off the top hard layer and dig in with small pieces of bread.

Today we returned to Arcachon to see Cap Ferret and the Dune du Plait. As we exited the train station at Arcachon we realised we were quite hungry so we decided to stop and have a bite to eat. We were travelling with Floyd, another Australian that we had met from Melbourne who is also staying with Steph in Bordeaux.

After settling on a seafood restaurant, the boys ordered a delicious seafood platter, that was meant for 1 person, but as it turned out it was massive and they couldn't finish all of it together, came close though.

After lunch we caught a ferry across to Cap Ferret. We stepped off the ferry and decided to walk to the other side of Cap Ferret towards the Atlantic. It took about 15 minutes at a slow pace. When we reached the beach we could see the old WWII embattlements, mostly covered by sand and graffiti.