The highest sand dune in Europe. The largest sand dune in Europe

Unfortunately, before France Russian traveler Traditionally, getting there is more difficult than, for example, Italy or Spain. Few direct flights, poor geography of flights (mainly Paris, Nice and Marseille), high average cost - about 15 thousand rubles. It is not surprising that for the sake of the sea, cultural events and gastronomy, Russians choose Spain or Italy instead of France.

The situation changed dramatically this summer - Ural Airlines launched two direct flights to France: to Bordeaux and Montpellier. At the same time, the airline pleases with very pleasant fares all summer and autumn. So, in the summer one could find round-trip tickets for the fall to Bordeaux for 8-9 thousand rubles. We at PRTBRT are glad that now France is getting closer for travelers.

Here's why Aquitaine and Bordeaux can be great destinations for your autumn trip.

Bordeaux Airport is located in one of the largest regions of France - New Aquitaine. It includes several departments: Dordogne, Gironde, Landes, Lot-et-Garonne and Pyrénées-Atlantiques. This is one of the most picturesque regions of France: pine forests, sand dunes, coastline along the Atlantic Ocean stretches (almost 300 kilometers), medieval cities and, of course, vineyards. In our material, we will not touch on the entire region - it is too large and interesting - but we will focus on the first acquaintance and a round trip with arrival in Bordeaux.

Bordeaux itself is a French top city

Bordeaux is a great example of modern French city... The bouncy historic center is adjacent to the modern waterfront and the art quarter. The famous Bordeaux houses (échoppes bordelaises) and ancient vineyards coexist quietly with modern architecture and the futuristic Wine Museum (Cité du Vin). In cities like this, one can be genuinely surprised at how easily public opinion calls the French snobbish. Bordeaux is the perfect example of anti-sleepiness and modern look to a city with a huge history.

Historical Center Bordeaux

Historic center of Bordeaux

Especially striking is the lack of unnecessary reverence for historical buildings and the desire to create public spaces that the city needs right now. So, in 2006, opposite the Port of the Moon, at the Exchange Palace and the Customs Museum, a huge "Water Mirror" appeared. This is a whole area filled with water for a few sentiments. It gives an incredible reflection effect, literally turning the landscape upside down. Periodically, the fountain releases suspension from the water, creating the effect of fog and water mist. It is not surprising that this is one of the most favorite places not only for residents of the city, but also for tourists. Another great example of rethinking historical space is the Utopia Art House Cinema and Café. The cinema has occupied the space of an old church in the very center of the city. The interior has not changed much, so you should definitely look here.

Water mirror (Place de la Bourse)

Cinema and cafe Utopia

Bordeaux has an amazing concentration good museums... If you are in town for just a couple of days, we recommend visiting our top favorites: Cité du Vin Wine Museum, Museum contemporary art CAPC and of course cultural BETASOM located at the former base of Italian submarines.

Cost entrance ticket to the Wine Museum - 20 euros. This price includes the visit to the museum itself, an audio guide and even a tasting of one wine of your choice for observation deck museum.

Most tourists spend their time on the left bank of Bordeaux. This is a big omission: on the right is an important point of attraction - the Darwin art quarter. The former military barracks were transformed in 2002 into a huge modern space with shops, cafes, a skate park, coworking space and music clubs. It is best to come here for a certain event or festival - on weekdays it can be empty here. For example, on September 6-8, the big Climax eco-festival will take place here.

Wine Museum (La Cité du Vin)

Darwin Art District

Biarritz is the surfing capital of Europe. And then it's really cool

A relaxed and sunny city filled with retirees and surfers alike. If we talk about the famous French Bon vivantism, then it is here that it is most concentrated. Biarritz is completely devoid of the pretentiousness and gloss, which are so many on the French Riviera (yes, hello, Nice and Cannes). On the contrary, there are old villas and a luxurious casino, rather, serve as pretty scenery of local life. With a small city size in Biarritz, there is always something to do: walk along the beaches, go surfing, drink wine by the lighthouse, dine in fishermen's cafes, visit the public pool with a gorgeous ocean view.

Biarritz

Biarritz

If you have never tried surfing before and are sure that this is not for you, then Biarritz is a great place to gather your strength and try this sport. This city is the birthplace of European surfing. In 1956, Hollywood screenwriter Peter Werthel came to Biarritz to shoot a movie. He noticed that the local bay has a unique bottom structure, which allows the formation of waves of the size required for surfing. He regularly surfed here, and then donated his board to the local guys, who became the enthusiasts of the movement. Popularly nicknamed them "Les Tontons Surfeurs". By the way, the most famous surf school on this coast was founded - Jo Moraiz - just by one of these guys.

Biarritz

Learn and experience French wine

If you have long wanted to start at least a little bit of French wine, then Bordeaux is the perfect destination for you. The scale of production, traditions and culture of wine here will thrill and stupor even those who are seriously immersed in wine culture. Wine is the basis of the cultural code of Bordeaux, which is read everywhere - from ancient châteaux with huge vineyards to the ultra-modern Wine Museum. The museum, by the way, tells not only about the history of winemaking, but also about how and who makes wine in other countries now. The editors, for example, were pleasantly surprised by how widely Georgia is represented in the museum.

Bordeaux has a variety of wine-related educational and recreational activities, ranging from a wine half marathon to serious courses on world winemaking. In Cité du Vin, for example, a special tasting room has been built, where you can not only taste Chilean or Georgian wine, but also immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the region itself: through video sequences, specially recorded sounds and even smells. The tourist site Bordeux Wine Trip has a whole section with developed itineraries through the vineyards. You can even visit them by bike!

Wine Museum (La Cité du Vin)

Basques are not only in Spain. This is where you can get to know their amazing culture

Basques are perhaps one of the most interesting and distinctive peoples living in Europe. Traditionally, the Basques settled in the south of France and in the north of Spain, settling in the steep slopes of the Western Pyrenees. The isolation, to which some mountain peoples are inclined, led to the fact that the Basque culture remained distinctive and unusual. That there is only the famous Basque language. It has no analogues in the world and does not adjoin any classical group of languages.

Due to radical views and the terrorist organization ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), the world has heard more about the Spanish part of the Basque Country. But it is in the south-west of France that there are a large number of traditional villages and cities in which you can plunge headlong into the unusual culture of the Basques.

Basque pelota

For rustic flair and traditional Basque architecture, travel to small villages scattered throughout southwestern France. So, half an hour's drive from Biarritz is the picturesque village of Ainhoa. She, by the way, is included in the list of the most beautiful villages in France. Enoa is famous for the fact that it is here that the Basque buildings have been preserved as much as possible - the center of the village consists entirely of traditional white and red houses.

Bayonne

Ainhoa

Another village worth visiting is Espelette. It is here that the famous Espeletian red pepper is produced. It is used in many of the region's traditional dishes and is of course exported. The pungency of this pepper is not very high: on the Scoville scale, it does not exceed 4 thousand units. The best time to visit this place - late summer and autumn. Firstly, in autumn the houses look as colorful as possible - they are all hung with peppers, which are dried in the sun. Secondly, at the end of October, a grand festival of pepper and Basque culture is held here.

Espelette

See the largest sand dune in Europe

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The tallest sand dunes on our planet are located in Africa, in the Namibian desert, in the Sossusvlei nature reserve. Some of them reach almost 400 meters in height.

The dunes were "built" by the wind. This is a very slow but tenacious builder. The sand is constantly moving. And the shape of the sandy skyscrapers changes.
In addition to height and shape, giants also differ from each other in color. There are up to 16 shades of red, pink, yellow, orange.

Not all of the sandy mountains are allowed to approach and drive up. Self-will is punishable by a substantial fine.

Dune called Big Daddy 325 meters high

More often than not, the dunes are not given names, but simply assigned a number. The highest dune is dune no. 7, its height is almost 390 m.

Sossusvlei is like waves - which are lower, which are higher. The dunes come together here, preventing further flow of the Tsauchab River, about 60 km east of the Atlantic Ocean.

Endless play of light and shadow. Dunes of the perfect form. Sharpened dune ridges. Bright sky. Surreal world ...

Black gnarled trunks of acacias dried up a thousand years ago - this is the Dead Valley - Dead Vlei.

For many years, the dunes were formed under the influence of winds.

The dunes have different colors: from red to chestnut brown, from pale yellow to fiery scarlet, from apricot to orange.

Experienced tourists say that in Sossusflea you need to meet at least one sunrise and one sunset to see all the sandy shades: from pale yellow-pink to orange, then to rich yellow, red and deep purple in the shade ...

Climbing the dunes is arranged for tourists. Climb on

I don't have a quadrocopter, so I had to borrow the first picture from the Internet, all the other photos are mine. This natural wonder is located in the south of France near the city of Arcachon. This is called sand dune- Dune Saw.

02. Saw Dune is very popular with tourists from all over the world. Pay attention to the information plate. The air temperature at the time of our arrival was 34 degrees, and it continues to rise. Naturally, this is in the shade, which is practically not there. There is a small amount of shadow in the parking lot, as well as on the approaches to the dune.

03. We leave the car in the parking lot and start driving towards the Saw Dune. I read on the Internet that you cannot climb the dune with dogs, but the reality is different. I saw several visitors with dogs there, but I did not see any prohibition signs.

04. Before climbing, you can leave your shoes below, or you may not. It seems that some group of schoolchildren decided to go barefoot.

05. The dune is located on the shores of the Bay of Biscay, from the land side its profile is quite steep.

06. You can, of course, climb on foot directly on the sand, but it seems to me that a more convenient way to climb to the top of the dune would be to climb the stairs.

07. But you can walk downhill. Probably, these are the same schoolchildren who left their shoes downstairs.

08. The Pyla Dune is about 130 meters high. Climbing to its top in such heat is not easy at all.

09. The dog, after lifting, was breathing so hard that I was afraid that she would have a heart failure, but nothing happened.

10. A short rest after the ascent and continue on the dune. Further, there is also a small difference in heights, but it is practically not felt after the tiring climb up the stairs.

11. On the left is the Bay of Biscay of the Atlantic Ocean, on the right Arkashonsky. Ahead you can see the city of Cap-Ferret. I recently talked about the visit.

12. There are a lot of young people on the dune. It was mid-June. I don’t know whether the school year was over for French schoolchildren by this time or not.

13. The Pyla Dune is about 3 kilometers long, but there are very few people willing to walk in such heat to the opposite edge of the dune.

14. The bulk of tourists hang out on the territory of the first five hundred meters. Someone is sitting on the sand, many are taking pictures or photographing the surrounding landscapes.

15. The descent to the water is shallower than from the opposite side of the dune, but almost no one descends to the ocean either, because then you will either have to climb up the sand or go around the perimeter of the dune to get to the car left in the parking lot.

The most real sandy desert can be found in France. This is the famous Pyla Dune. Millions of tons of golden sand, as if by a magician's spell, were transported here from the Sahara.

general description

Pyla Dune is the highest dune in Europe. Its highest point lies at 130 meters. But this value is not constant, strong winds affect, periodically correcting it in one direction or another.

The sandy strip has a fairly regular rectangular shape. The dune is 600 meters wide and almost 3 kilometers long. The volume of sand is estimated at about 60 million cubic meters.

By the way, a similar sandy phenomenon can be observed in Japan. There is about the same desert called Tottori.

Where is the Pyla dune

Geographic coordinates 44.589167, -1.214618

The French Desert is located in the area of ​​the town of La Teste de Buch in the southwestern part of the country, right on the Atlantic coast.

This region is known as New Aquitaine, and the area in which the dune is located is called the Gironde. Nearest Big City Bordeaux is 60 kilometers northeast. Pyla Dune is located right at the entrance to Arcachon Bay.

Features of Saw Dune

Dune formation

By virtue of its geographic location, in this area, westerly winds prevail, which carry sand from the coast. This explains the shape of the dune. From the side of the ocean it has a gentle slope, but from the opposite side it is quite steep. That is why the ascent to the sandy mountain from the eastern side is very difficult.

Due to the influx of tourists, stairs are installed here in the summer. Climbing with their help to the top of the hill, you have an impressive view - to the west Atlantic Ocean, in the east there are pine forests, and when the weather is clear, in the south you can see the Pyrenees mountains on the border with Spain.

Dune movement

Under the influence of the winds, the sand of the dune is steadily moving inland, slowly absorbing the forest, covering houses and roads. The movement speed is not constant. Sometimes it is as much as 10 meters per year, and sometimes less than one meter per year. Over the past 57 years, the dune has moved about 280 meters. Thus, its speed was 4.9 meters per year.

Saw Dune Victims

The dune movement has already swallowed about two dozen houses. Each year, the sand covers approximately 8,000 square meters of nearby pine forests.
In the northeastern part of the dune, a road was blocked in 1987, and in 1991 it was already completely buried under a layer of sand.
In 1928, in the southeastern part of the dune, a family from Bordeaux built a villa, and in 1936 the whole house was hidden under the sand.

Sandy islands at the Pyla dune

Just 1 kilometer west of the dune, in the waters of the Atlantic lies the sandy island of Banc d'Arguin. It has similar dimensions (4.5 km by 700 meters) and stretches almost parallel to the dune. But behind this island (and again about 1 km to the west) there is another islet of Banc du Toulinguet. It is much more modest in size (about 700 by 400 meters). Both islands are very popular with travelers. There are always a lot of boats, boats and tourists here.

Many names of one dune

On the Internet, in guidebooks and tourist brochures, you will find several names for this attraction: Dune du Pilat, Dune du Pyla, Grande Dune du Pilat.

Usually outside of France, the name of the Pyla dune is used, but few people know that the official (and therefore correct) name of the attraction is Dune du Pilat. At least this name is used in all official French documents. It is derived from the Gascon word pilhat, which means heap or mound.

The seaside resort of Pyla sur Mer, founded in 1920 and part of La Teste de Buch, stretches north of the dune. The first part of its name led to confusion in the names.
In spite of official name dunes, road signs meet with different names. You, most importantly, do not be embarrassed and do not worry, they all lead to the same place.

1. The Pyla Dune is a fairly well-known and visited attraction in France. More than a million tourists are stormed by its dunes every year.
2. On January 24, 2009, during a storm on the Saw Dune, was recorded maximum speed wind speed 175 km / h. As a result of this storm, the dune was significantly damaged.
3. Due to the strong winds in the dune area, the conditions are ideal for paragliding. This is what many fans of this entertainment use.

(dune du Pilat), located near the city of Arcachon.

It is the highest dune in Europe, with a constantly changing height ranging from 110 to 130 meters. From the satellite, the dune looks like this.

And this is a view of the entire three-kilometer dune from a quadrocopter (from Wikipedia).

The dune began to form about 4 thousand years ago: under the influence of the storm winds of the Bay of Biscay, quicksand began to layer and gradually move to nearby settlements.

Where did the sand come from? Weathering and the waters of the bay eroded mountain ranges Central Pyrenees, the stone turned into sand, which was carried away by rivers to the sea, and the tides (there are ebb and flow), returned the sand back. The wind from the bay drove the sand towards the land, there were forests in the path of the sand - this is how the dune grew.

At some point, Napoleon issued a decree that forests should be planted in abundance around the dune - to protect the territories. And there was something to defend: the dune kept advancing and advancing, in the thirties of the last century it already managed to swallow up an entire house, which was very imprudently built not far from it on the way of advancement.

The dune is about 600 meters wide; it has a long gentle slope from the sea side and a rather steep slope (up to 30 degrees) from the forest side.

So we arrived at a nature reserve built on the leeward side of the dune.

The weather was cloudy, periodically there was heavy rain, but we still hoped to go upstairs.

National park in front of the dune. It has a cafe, some amenities, but the cafe, of course, does not work in winter, in winter there are very few tourists, the weather does not favor visits. But in the summer there is a continuous stream of tourists, and about two million people visit the dune every year.

Now we have already come to the dune. Do you see the top of a covered tree in the center of the frame? So, a few years ago there was a cafe under this tree. You can imagine the speed with which the dune is advancing.

At first, the ascent is relatively gentle, then it becomes very steep and there you have to go not "head-on", but to the side diagonally: it takes longer to climb, but it is a little easier.

And the situation was, frankly speaking, very unfavorable: on the dune, even during the ascent, a very strong wind was blowing, which threw sand in the face. And when we went upstairs, there was a hurricane at all: it practically knocked the smartphone down and pulled out of my hands: I could barely hold it.

This is a view of the forest from the top of the dune.

And this is the view for which we climbed up - the Bay of Biscay. Well at least I managed to make one shot - there was also rain, the situation was somewhat extreme.

In summer, of course, this is a completely different matter. The wind is very light, and a staircase of 260 steps is also being laid for tourists. Tourists go up barefoot (the sand will be hammered into any shoes) and then walk there along the three-kilometer dune zone.

Highly interesting place, glad I visited. Well, I'll try to come somehow in the summer - everything should be completely different here.

Before that, I was only on. It is also a very interesting place, but here the dune is much more impressive.