Arcachon Bay in 3 days

Europe's highest dune, about a hundred metres of sand creeping inland over the pines, with views over the Arguin sandbank and Cap Ferret.

A white sandbank facing the dune, a nature reserve since 1972 where Sandwich terns nest in spring and boats anchor for summer swimming.

Rebuilt in 1947 after the Germans destroyed it, with 258 steps up to a gallery overlooking the dune, the ocean channel and the oyster villages.

Painted wooden huts along sandy lanes on Cap Ferret, where oyster farmers serve their oysters at tables facing the beds, with white wine.

A 19th-century hillside quarter built for lung patients in the shelter of the pines, with some three hundred villas in Gothic, Swiss and Moorish styles.

A boat trip round the island of mudflats and salt meadows in the middle of the bay, with its two stilt huts, emblems of Arcachon.

The liveliest of the seven oyster harbours of Gujan-Mestras, with wooden huts, flat boats, producers selling on pontoons and an oyster museum.

Lagoons and reedbeds where the Leyre meets the bay, with a 6 km trail of about twenty hides for spoonbills, herons, avocets and storks.