Arcachon Bay: The Dune du Pilat, the Winter Town and the Stilt Huts
Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France
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Pilat Summiteer
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275
XP
+100 France
= 375 total
2 days
Arcachon Bay: The Dune du Pilat, the Winter Town and the Stilt Huts
275 + 100 XP
The Dune du Pilat, 103.6m high in 2023 and the highest in Europe, is 2.9km long and holds some 55 million cubic metres of sand, and on its landward side it is burying the pine forest at one to five metres a year. From the crest you look over the mouth of Arcachon Bay to the Banc d'Arguin and Cap Ferret. Behind it is Arcachon's 19th-century Ville d'Hiver; out in the bay the Ile aux Oiseaux keeps its cabanes tchanquees, huts on stilts built to watch over the oyster beds.
Required Activities
1
of 4
Climb the Dune du Pilat, by the wooden stairway if it is in place or straight up the sand if it is not, and walk the crest to look over the Banc d'Arguin and Cap Ferret; on the landward side see where the sand is burying the pine forest
2
of 4
Take a boat round the Île aux Oiseaux with the Union des Bateliers Arcachonnais and see the cabanes tchanquées, the stilt huts of the oyster farmers
3
of 4
Walk the Ville d'Hiver the Pereire brothers laid out between 1862 and 1865, and notice that every avenue curves - the sinuous lines were drawn as windbreaks to shelter tubercular patients from the draughts; then climb the Observatoire Sainte-Cecile, the 25m iron belvedere Paul Regnauld built in 1863 with Gustave Eiffel's help, and find the Villa Teresa below you
4
of 4
Eat oysters from the bay at an oyster farmer's hut in Gujan-Mestras
Climb the Dune du Pilat, by the wooden stairway if it is in place or straight up the sand if it is not, and walk the crest to look over the Banc d'Arguin and Cap Ferret; on the landward side see where the sand is burying the pine forest
Take a boat round the Île aux Oiseaux with the Union des Bateliers Arcachonnais and see the cabanes tchanquées, the stilt huts of the oyster farmers
Walk the Ville d'Hiver the Pereire brothers laid out between 1862 and 1865, and notice that every avenue curves - the sinuous lines were drawn as windbreaks to shelter tubercular patients from the draughts; then climb the Observatoire Sainte-Cecile, the 25m iron belvedere Paul Regnauld built in 1863 with Gustave Eiffel's help, and find the Villa Teresa below you
Eat oysters from the bay at an oyster farmer's hut in Gujan-Mestras
Before you go
The dune stairway is put in just before Easter and taken away at the end of the All Saints holidays. Out of season you climb the sand itself, which is hard work in soft dry sand and much harder coming down.
More than two million people a year reach the crest, with over 10,000 on some August days - go early or late, and expect the car parks to be full and charged from mid-morning in summer.
Boat trips to the Ile aux Oiseaux must be booked and depend on the tide; they leave from Arcachon's Thiers jetty.
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About Nouvelle-Aquitaine
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Challenge Location
XP Breakdown
Challenge XP
275 XP
France country bonus
+100 XP
Potential total
375 XP
Country bonus earned on completion of your first challenge in France.
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