On Sunday, a day before traveling to Paris where we would catch our flight back to the U.S., we were invited by Véronique to join the small group she was currently guiding on a day trip to Arcachon, a small town on the ocean about an hour train ride south of Bordeaux. Kim, with whom we spent part of Friday, joined us. We met our group at the train station in Bordeaux, which has one of the largest metallic train sheds in Europe, at 17,000 square meters.

Véronique grew up in Arcachon, and she likes to show it off to visitors. It is situated on a beautiful bay, and has become a popular beach resort. Arcachon Bay is also known for its oyster farms. Just to the south is the Dune du Pilat. Three kilometers long, 500 meters wide, and 110 meters in height, it is Europe’s largest sand dune. We didn’t have a car, so we couldn’t visit the dune.

Shortly after we arrived, we crossed the bay to Cap Ferret, about 1/2 hour away by ferry.

We had lunch at Le Pinasse Café, very close to the ferry dock on Cap Ferret. We started with a seafood platter, with oysters, sea snails, shrimp, langoustine and other creatures. My main course was dorade (a white fish). For dessert: Fig with ice cream and hazelnut crumble.

Sadly, we had to dash out in the middle of dessert, in order to catch the ferry to Arcachon. Otherwise, we would have had to wait a couple of hours for the next boat. We had our coffee in the town square.

The rest of the afternoon was spent strolling around town, admiring the Arcachonnaise architecture of the “Winter City” (the part of town away from the beach — the “Summer City”). Arcachonnaise and Victorian architecture share similarities in their rich ornamentation and decorative wood carving (among other similarities). We stopped at the home of friends of Véronique’s, Dominic and Annick, who lived in one of these beautiful homes, Villa Marguerite. The house was built in the mid to late 1800s. Dominic and Annick have created a beautiful garden on the hill behind their home. They told us a story about the house: that a young Claude Debussy stayed in the house for a time, serving as a tutor to the children of a Russian patron of the arts, Nadezhda von Mec. (Killjoy ChatGPT, however, says there is no historical evidence for this claim.)

After saying good-bye to Dominic and Annick, it was time to head back to the train station and catch the train to Bordeaux, where we were invited to join Véronique and her group for dinner at Le Clemenceau. It was my last chance to have magret de canard on this trip.