NATURAL Wonder

With its bountiful sands, surf and seafood, the Bassin d’Arcachon provides the perfect off-season escape, as Alison Weeks discovers

- Alison Weeks

It’s dark when our plane touches down at Bordeaux Airport, so it’s hard to judge the weather outside. Yet as we walk from the terminal to our hire car, I can’t help but note a mildness in the air. At home, the crisp early autumn days have given way to cooler nights and although we have come with our coats in tow, I feel hopeful that we may not need them here.

The Gironde département is known for its temperate oceanic climate, which provides the ideal conditions for the region’s renowned terroir. But we aren’t here to tour Bordeaux or its vineyards. Instead we pile the kids into the hire car and head 30 miles to the west to the Bassin d’Arcachon, or Arcachon Bay, on France’s Côte d’Argent, halfway between Biarritz and La Rochelle.

Stretching from the Cap Ferret headland in the north to the Dune du Pilat in the south, this inland sea boasts some of the region’s most beautiful beaches. And although part of me wishes we were visiting in the middle of summer, local friends assure me that hors-saison is the best time to truly appreciate the natural wonders of the bay.

At the height of the tourist season, this route linking Bordeaux to the coast sees a steady stream of daytrippers from the city and holidaymakers from further afield. But as my husband steers the car through sleepy villages and down empty roads, I feel pleased that we may have the place to ourselves.

World is our oyster