La Baule

La Baule is what Surfers Paradise might look like if it had been developed 50 years earlier by people with taste and discernment. A very wide, very long, south-facing beach curves between two headlands. Two hundred years ago, there was just a line of sand dunes separating the Atlantic and a salt swamp, just like Queensland, except that the swampy bit, the Marais Salant, has been turned into salt pans and farmed for salt for centuries. Early in the nineteenth century, the unstable dunes finally buried most of the tiny fishing village of Escoublac, and a forest of pines was then planted to stabilise the dunes. In 1879 a train line was built. The journey from Paris took just 7 hours - enterprising developers decided this was the place for a resort. The first built dozens of villas with their own particular style, part traditional Breton, part mock medieval, with an overlay of Art Deco. As with much French architecture, the consistency of style makes the whole development singularly attractive. The second developer added grand hotels and a Casino in the 1920s and had the railway moved from the beach to the back of the town. Some time in the 1940s or 1950s La Baule became so popular that a string of apartment buildings was built all along the beach front. It sounds appalling, but because there is a height limit of about 5 stories and the architecture is again consistent, it is actually OK, although I bet the owners of the villas who lost their view of the beach were upset at the time.
The quality of the cars driving around in La Baule indicates that this is still predominantly a playground for the wealthy, but most people living there don't drive at all. Streets were laid out before the advent of the automobile, so they are narrow and now part of a complex one-way system. As it is fairly flat, everyone walks or rides bikes. Our host, whom I met a year ago in Melbourne, inherited an old villa from his parents, but his normal residence is an apartment in the heart of Paris. He doesn't own a car, comes to La Baule by train (now a three hour journey), and then uses the bikes he keeps in his garage, and which we now use to go places that are too far to walk. His villa Colibri is near the Avenue President Charles de Gaulle, the main shopping and restaurant strip set at right angles to the road that runs along the beachfront, and is also within easy walking distance of the market, so most of our exploring is done on foot. The market is wonderful, and open every day, so we alternate between eating out and eating at the villa. Our host comes for the weekend to get us set up and show us the way to the market and favourite shops, then returns to Paris, leaving us to the care of his friends who live in one of the beachfront apartment buildings. They provide advice on where to go, so we bicycle to the Breton fishing villages of Le Pouliguen and Batz-sur-Mer, looking at the Marais Salant en route, drive to more villages: Le Croisic and La Turballe, and to the mediaeval walled town of Guerande. We also pursue our canal exploration and research, driving to Redon where a canal intersects a river via a couple of locks, then to Messac to look at second-hand boats.
For the first time on our holiday, the weather is less than perfect. After looking as though it was improving for the first two days, it deteriorates into cool and showery, with one day of non-stop rain. With no beach weather, even I am not tempted to swim, and nor are the rest of the La Baule inhabitants, although there are plenty of people sailing and windsurfing on the bay. We are very pleased that our new found friends invite us to their apartment on the night of Bastille Day, as we can watch the absolutely splendid display of fireworks, let off from barges moored off-shore, without having to freeze sitting on the beach. At least it doesn't rain during the evening, and there is a big crowd on the beach despite the weather.
On the less clement days, we do a bit of gardening and maintenance on the house (which is a bit neglected as our host has a very demanding job and can only rarely find time to visit). After a week we feel quite part of the community of La Baule, especially as we have been so well looked after and made so welcome by his friends. It is high on the list of places to come back to next time, maybe when we have fulfilled our canal barge dream and are travelling the rivers and canals of Brittany.