Photo spot in Arcachon & the Dune du Pilat
The Ville d'Hiver villas
Three hundred nineteenth-century villas built among the pines for winter guests — carved balconies, quiet lanes and an iron observatory above them.
About The Ville d'Hiver villas
Get directionsThe Ville d'Hiver was laid out in the 1860s on the wooded ridge behind the beach, as a place for winter visitors to breathe pine air. What that left is a hillside neighbourhood of three hundred villas in every style the century could think of — Swiss chalet, neo-Gothic, colonial — with fretwork balconies, verandas and no two façades alike.
It photographs best as a walk rather than a single frame. The curving lanes give doorways, gates and shuttered windows in soft green shade; the Parc Mauresque at the top opens out over the roofs and the bay; and the iron observatory tower and the footbridge that reaches it are the one unmistakably industrial note in a district of timber and lace.
Mornings are best: the pines throw hard, patchy shade at midday, and the streets are residential and quiet enough that early sessions bother nobody. It is a ten-minute walk uphill from the seafront, or a short ride on the lift that connects the two towns.
Best time to shoot
Morning, before the pines turn to hard patchy shade
Tips
These are lived-in houses on residential lanes — keep to the street and keep the group small. The Parc Mauresque above gives the open view when the lanes feel too enclosed.
Other spots in Arcachon & the Dune du Pilat
The Dune du Pilat ridge at sunset
A hundred metres of pale sand with the Atlantic on one side and a pine forest on the other — the tallest dune in Europe, and its best half hour is the last.
The Jetée Thiers and the seafront
The town's main pier walking out over the bay under red-and-white lamps, with the beach on both sides and the dune pale on the horizon.
L'Herbe and the Cap Ferret lighthouse
An oyster village of coloured huts and a white Algerian chapel, with the red-and-white lighthouse standing over the pines a few kilometres south.
Ready to book?
Our concierge team will hand-pick 2-3 photographers who know The Ville d'Hiver villas — free of charge.