Dune du Pilat in Arcachon

24 March

We had dinner in one of the delightful squares that pepper Bordeaux city. There are so many cafes here, so the cost of eating out is very reasonable. The one we chose had 3 set menus, in euros, 13.50, 25 and 35. You get a three course meal with each one. Marcus and I chose the 13.50 one. We had onion soup with a weird dollop of cheese in it messing up our ability to slurp it up quickly. I had la canard (fried duck) with salad and round cut frites and citron tart for dessert. Marcus had a salmon and chocolate cake. Josh joined us while we were having dessert and helped me drink some wine. It was just so lovely sitting there watching all the people activities around us in the warm evening. Home by 11pm which is really 10pm, because day light saving in France started this morning. We are only 11 hours behind NZ and soon to be 10.

Next morning 25 March, we had a Calzone lunch in a pizzeria by the Garonne River. I had booked a wine tour for us after lunch. The tour was to Saint Emilion, a medieval town an hour north east of Bordeaux.

The winery part of the tour was strictly for newbies, for the more experienced wine drinkers, it would be better to get a private guide and go with a group of friends. Saint Emilion however was very nice. We visited an underground church, which took the monks about a 100 years to excavate. And walked around the little town looking at all the quaint buildings and shops. All very Harry Potterish.

Next morning 26 March, it was time to start the driving part of our tour. It was a 10 min ride in the tram to the Peugeot office. Paperwork and instructions on the car and GPS took about 30 mins. We are going to Dune de Pilat on the Atlantic coast, an hours drive from Bordeaux. Josh was joining us for this trip. He'd over estimated the travel time to the Peugeot office and was waiting for us outside while we were getting the run through from the Peugeot agent.

The Peugeot 308 station wagon merits a write-up of its own. I will do that later once I figure out the features and so on.

I was rather nervous pulling out of the showroom, the car had 3km on the clock. The voice of the GPS was rather faint, and everytime time we tried to turn up the volume the French radio go louder instead, so I had to rely on Marcus to amplify and repeat the directives. You only get 100kms of gas intially, so the first stop is to fill up. After about 10 kms, I only missed 2 turns and had the reverse out of 1 one way street, not bad huh!

We drove past Simply Supermarche and spotted a gas station there. There were 3 pumps and 2 didn't work. Josh hopped out to help but he could not decide if the diesel car needed E95, E98 or gasole. As I'd done my homework, it was gasole - diesel in France. The remaining pump worked brilliantly and even accepted my NZ Visa. Instructions on the LCD came through in a mixture of English and French. Upon restarting the car the electronics inform me that I have 940 km of distance from the tank of diesel at 1.43 per litre.

It was difficult to concentrate on the GPS instructions, because I was silently chanting to myself "tight right loose left anti clockwise round about" So I had to constantly ask Marcus "what did she say".

We did get to Dune de Pilat safely. The dunes are pretty cool and it was fun climbing up and down the sand. These dunes are mini mountain sand dunes on the beach about 3 kms across and 100m metres high. We dicussed bringing a sled next time.

None of us had had breakfast and it was 1pm, so we programmed the GPS to take us to the largest supermarket figuring they would have a cafe there or we would find one on the way. While Marcus was out paying the parking ticket, I managed to turn up the volume on the GPS. There was a price to pay for this higher volume.

After driving around for 10 mins, the GPS annouced that we had arrived. We were in a middle of a residential street. Duh!

Anyway we found Carrefour, lunched, groceries, found hotel and checked in. Voila!

Arcachon is a pretty seaside town with wide and long sandy beaches. As good as any in the Carribean, Hawaii or tropics. The Atlantic water was super cold and no one was swimming. The air temperature would be about 28C, no wonder everyone loves the weather in the South of France. We walked around a bit, bought some dinner from another supermarket.