We woke at 8.15 and had a very welcome slow breakfast before heading out to explore. Walking towards the coast and the port, we saw only dog walkers and joggers initially and then some people emerging from their hotels. Many of the houses in the Ville d’Automne resemble those seen in Nob Hill, San Francisco (if they were made of wood and jammed closer together on steep streets). As it was Sunday, the port and fish market were very quiet. Closer to the piers and beaches, we had a coffee and it struck me that Arcachon is very like Santa Monica without the wacky factor: it has wealth, beaches, palm trees, people exercising on the boardwalk and lots of bijou boutiques but no hippies/new age people.
The only homeless person we saw was sitting on a bench with his morning beer and in reluctant conversation with a police officer. There was only one busker (a guy playing the guitar) on the promenade. Such things are obviously policed quite extensively. Not so the parking on Sunday; if you cannot find a space on the street you park on the centre of the mini-roundabout.
The market, surpasses any in the USA and we will not need to visit another supermarket on this trip. After a lazy lunch with a glass of wine back at the apartment, I sat on the terrace, soaking up the sun for a while and continuing to read Dayton Duncan’s ‘Miles from Nowhere: Tales from America’s Contemporary Frontier’. The chapter I am reading at the moment on the Navajo Nation and their governmental seat in Window Rock, Arizona and the Canyon de Chelly are particularly interesting and poignant as we visited the area last year.
