Dordogne to Cap Ferret

Our week at Domme, in the Dordogne region of France, flew past but we weren’t especially busy, spending quite a lot of time either in or within 20 kilometres or so, of our apartment. There were plenty of things to see and do within those limits, however, and we hope that we’ve summarised our stay in this brief video:



With a week in the Dordogne now behind us, I’m writing this on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, just west of Bordeaux. The weather here today is hot and sunny and we’re in shorts and T shirts. A fine white sandy beach is just 50m away and it fringes a large estuary formed where the river Eyre encounters the Atlantic Ocean in Arcachon Bay.

We pulled up stakes from our small Dordogne village last Sunday, 17 June and drove the three and a half hour distance to Cap Ferret in one hit, stopping to eat our home-prepared lunch only when we found a pleasant shady pause-point only three kilometres from our destination, here in the village of Petit-Piquey. The village is one of a N-S string of east-facing similar villages on a gradually-narrowing sandy peninsula which terminates several kilometres south of us, at Cap Ferret. No sign of that skinny furry mammal, though, and we don’t know the origin of the Cape’s name.

This is a beach resort and we expect it to be unbearably crowded in a few weeks when most of France takes its annual holiday. Right now, however, it’s very quiet and we think we’re probably seeing it at its best. This area is modern France, hardly a church in sight, and it bares a faint resemblance to the northern part of our Sunshine Coast, with only low rise buildings being permitted where elsewhere towering apartment blocks would dominate the skyline.

Huitres (oysters) are one of this area’s claims to fame. And, having sampled some, we agree that the claim is justified. Even as I write this my mouth is watering as I recall our evening meal yesterday, in bare feet at a table and chairs perched in sand just above the high tide line. The oysters are plucked, alive, from a large well-aerated saltwater tank on the premises and are shucked and placed on ice for immediate consumption, accompanied by delicious bread and butter, a glorious ice cold bottle or two of local white wine, and fresh lemons for juicing. The meal isn’t cheap, but is reasonably priced and well worth the cost, especially given the presentation, the service, the accompaniments and the setting, overlooking the exposed sand flats which hold the rustic platforms on which the oysters are grown, encased loosely with a couple of hundred others in a plastic envelope which is submerged twice daily with the rising tide. We’re planning on doing it again tonight.

We’ve adopted low key mode here, with late breakfasts, lots of time spent looking at the view from our large balcony while reading books and, as the need arises (more often these days), taking a snooze. La Conch, the oyster restaurant, is within walking distance, just along the beach, and reservations are not presently necessary: just walk up from the beach, grab a table you like and take a seat. Meal choices are easy and decisions are confined to how many oysters you want, which of the two available wines suits you and whether you want freshly cooked prawns (served whole and cold as in Australia) as an entree.



Moving on to La Rochelle next…

Kev and Mary