Photographers in Arcachon & the Dune du Pilat

Arcachon is an hour from Bordeaux and holds two very different sessions in one place. The first is the Dune du Pilat, the tallest sand dune in Europe — a hundred metres of pale sand running nearly three kilometres, the Atlantic and the Banc d'Arguin sandbank on one side, a dark pine forest on the other. Sunset is the shot: the ridge empties as the light goes, the sand turns apricot, and a couple stands against nothing but sky. The dune moves inland a few metres a year and buries what it reaches, so there is no permanent access — the wooden staircase is seasonal, and the rest of the year it is a climb through soft sand. The second session is the town. The Ville d'Hiver is a hillside of some three hundred nineteenth-century villas built among the pines for winter guests, all carved balconies and verandas, with a Moorish park above and a footbridge over the ravine; below it the Ville d'Été runs along the water, where the Jetée Thiers reaches out under its red lamps. Around the bay lie the oyster villages — L'Herbe with its coloured huts and its little Algerian chapel — and the red-and-white Cap Ferret lighthouse above the pines. Practical notes: the bay is tidal, and low water leaves mud flats rather than the postcard; the dune car park is paid and fills by mid-morning in July and August; and the boat from the Jetée Thiers to Cap Ferret takes about half an hour, so check the timetable before planning both shores in one evening.