After an uplifting Pointe end review of distant Cordouan, and of the various markers that punctuate the Pointe, our first specified target is to visit the St Nicolas Feu Antérieur, overlooked if not exactly spurned as a mere feu hitherto, but now enticing, to fill in the gap in our awareness, as previously described in that Pharesighted post….. as you will no doubt be calling to mind. No?
Here’s the linkagain: pointe de grave …now amended accordingly.
Saint Nicolas Feu takes a bit too long to locate, we are slipping, but we find it, snap it, and move on. Sweet and still active! The nudist beach in front of it is indeed nude: i.e. it is sans bathers and sun worshippers, nude or otherwise.
We are going down the Gironde side of Médoc this time, clipping the edges of some very renowned Bordeaux vineyards rather than through the woods that clothe so much of Aquitaine. Leaving aside the town where is purchased a single filled baguette and where Mme Melling is enchanted by a romanesque church with a modern tower affixed, we now move on to visit and inspection of the first inactive Gironde estuary lighthouse of the day, namely the Pointe de Richard Phare, relegated to act as a museum and a focal point on this impressive stretch of estuary. Remember, the Gironde is the largest estuary in Europe! It is spiffing. Ships pass up and down, but manage without the reassuring flicker of Fresnels. It’s the same on the Seine: Phares & Balises have decided that if you are sailing up or down a navigable river then you don’t need lighthouses these days. Shame, foolish even, but there you are.
Two more such abandoned lights are encountered before we head into the trees. One in the river and the other on an island in the river. Read them up if you like: The Lighthouse Directory covers these sad relics and explains the tripod phare that preceded the more standard structure that became the last Phare de Richard. What a loss to lighthouse variety, does no one value ingenuity?
We don’t go up the edifice, we’ve done that before… I don’t fancy queueing behind tourists of a certain age to struggle up to the lantern, because I am one such tourist myself, preferring to keep my stair-climbing struggles private, where possible. But we do take our chance to capture Cap Ferret’s likeness once more: it certainly looks as though it has been in receipt of fresh paint in the not too distant past. Smart!
It’s nearly always worth going out of one’s way to visit a phare, of course it is, even if you’ve scored it before, but the resulting trek to our Bassin-de-Arcachon south side hotel is slow, long and yes, tedious. The traffic my dear. How many roundabouts, traffic lights and speed bumps do communities need? Come off it!! Jeeeez. We pay for our visit in the traffic and the road right round the bally bassin… it takes an age!
Oblivious to the energy sapping exertions of getting to this comfortable but improbably sited hotel, Mme Melling drags her incumbent out into the mean streets of La Teste-de-Buch in search of an eatery she’s researched on the internet. Needless to say the principle establishment she has identified only serves lunches (didn't read the small print) so we end up on a roof overlooking the port at the second choice. Lovely evening and a very busy resto, hardly surprising, it seems the only place for miles and we are on foot. We choose tapas. One of Mary’s choices proves to be out of stock so almost absent mindedly and without further reference to the menu she substitutes octopus. We are well in to our other tapas when this latter choice arrives. Whole. Barbequed. Cut into bite size chunks before our very eyes.
Octopus is a no-no in Mme Melling’s book as this cephalopod is deemed to be too intelligent and beautiful to eat . . . It is delicous. We eat it all we eat well. The price proves to be a bit of a fright but then everything is, with the pound dropping like a stone once more, just because we came on holiday . . . Nevertheless, it is unlikely we will order it again, given our sensitivities towards this noble monarch of the sea-bed. And the price.
