A house on Arcachon Bay: north shore or south shore

The bay is almost enclosed, and you cannot drive round it without giving up half a day: you have to go up through Biganos and Le Teich at its head, some sixty kilometres between Arcachon and Cap-Ferret, when three kilometres of water separate them. Choosing a shore is therefore not a matter of taste: it decides what you do each morning.

The south shore. Arcachon, Le Moulleau, Pyla-sur-Mer. This is the town: a railway station, shops open all year, restaurants out of season and the Ville d'Été seafront. Behind it, the Ville d'Hiver lines up its timber villas under the pines, in a quiet quarter ten minutes' walk from the beach. The Pilat dune lies to the south, with the ocean beaches beyond. It is the right choice if you come by train, if you travel with teenagers, or if you want to eat out on a Tuesday in November.

The north shore. Lège-Cap-Ferret, and the villages strung along the channel — L'Herbe, Le Canon, Piquey, Piraillan. The houses are lower, often timber-built, under the pines, and shops are fewer. Oysters are eaten standing in the huts, facing the beds. The peninsula has two sides, and that is what makes it: the bay to the east, calm and mild, the ocean to the west ten minutes away by bicycle, with its swell and its rip currents. It is the right choice for a stay with young children, and for anyone happy to cook.

What August changes. A single road serves the peninsula, and it jams. Between mid-July and the end of August, taking three quarters of an hour to cover fifteen kilometres is unremarkable, and the ocean beach car parks fill before ten. The bicycle is not an affectation: it is the quickest way round Cap-Ferret, and most houses lend one. On the south shore the problem is different — you can drive, but you cannot park.

The tides, again. They decide more than the weather does. A house on the bay looks out, six hours in twelve, onto an expanse of sand and mud: that is the landscape, not a fault, but it is worth knowing before booking for daily swimming. The bay beaches swim around high water; the ocean ones always do, with the usual caution about rip currents and lifeguard hours. Ask the owner what you see from the terrace at low tide: the answer says more than a photograph.

Oysters, in practice. They are eaten all year; the rule about months with an R dates from a time before refrigeration. In summer they are simply milky, which is a matter of taste rather than freshness. You buy them at the hut, at the grower's price, and most open a terrace where you sit down to a dozen, bread and a glass of white. The oyster villages of Cap-Ferret and those of Gujan-Mestras, on the south shore, follow the same custom.

Our addresses on Arcachon Bay are rented direct from their owners, who know their shore, their channel and the hour at which the road clears.