Landes & Gironde

The beginner beach of the south Landes, also called Les Sablères. Vieux-Boucau is a family resort built around a marine lake where the children swim, and the ocean side is a wide, flat beach where the schools line up on the sand every summer morning. The peaks are soft and spread out, the whitewater runs a long way in, and the lifeguard post is right there. On an autumn swell the same banks turn into proper waves, so it is not only a first-week beach: it is where many locals learned, and where they still come when everything else is too big.

The surf-camp town of the German-speaking summer. Moliets-Plage is a small resort at the mouth of the Courant d'Huchet, a nature reserve where the river winds through the dunes to the sea, and its beach is enormous: hundreds of meters of flat sand with peaks scattered along it and a camp flag planted every fifty meters in July. In summer the waves are forgiving and the whitewater goes on forever, which is exactly what the camps need. In September and October the same beach produces proper, punchy waves, and the walk north toward the river mouth still finds you an empty bank.

The town where Bordeaux learns to surf. Lacanau-Océan has hosted a professional contest since 1979, and the Plage Centrale in front of the town still carries the banners every August; around it, the Super Sud and Nord accesses spread the crowd along kilometers of beach with schools and shops on every corner. The waves are honest beach-break peaks for every level, small and busy in summer, excellent in September when the schools go home and the first swells arrive. With one week and no car, this is the base: bus from Bordeaux, everything on foot, and a bike path north through the pines to the quieter accesses.

Halfway up the coast, Mimizan-Plage is a beach town cut in two by the Courant de Mimizan, the short river that drains the lake behind the dunes. Plage Nord has the promenade and the summer crowd, Plage Sud is quieter and wilder, and the banks that form on either side of the current are the reason to come: the outflow keeps sculpting sand, so there is usually a peak working somewhere when other beaches have gone flat or straight. The crowd is mixed, Bordeaux weekenders and locals, and nobody minds you on a weekday. A good middle-of-the-coast base with everything in walking distance.

The big resort of the north Landes, with three accesses, Plage Nord, Plage Centrale and Plage Sud, and a summer population that fills every apartment behind the dune. The peaks shift constantly here; there is no single bank with a name, only the one that happens to be working this week, and the game is to walk until you find it. August is crowded and often small, but from mid September the beach settles into long, open walls that suit anyone building their turns. The Dune du Pilat rises just north, so a flat afternoon has an obvious plan.

After Lacanau, Le Porge-Océan is the closest ocean beach to Bordeaux, and it has stayed the quiet one. There is no resort here, just a village in the forest, a huge campsite in the pines and a car park where the road ends in the dune, with a few peaks working in front of it and empty sand as far as you want to walk in either direction. The waves are the same as Lacanau's, sometimes better because fewer people are on them, and the crowd is Bordeaux surfers who come here precisely to avoid the town. On a clean weekday morning in October it is hard to beat.

The northern end of the surfable coast, before the sand gives way to the Gironde estuary. Montalivet is a small town with a big naturist tradition, the Euronat and CHM villages sit in the forest on either side, and the beach in front of the town is wide, flat and mostly empty even in July. The banks pick up the same swells as Lacanau and work on the same tides, but the drive from Bordeaux is longer and the crowd never followed. Walk five minutes from the central access and you are alone with the peaks, the dunes and, in season, a lifeguard post.

Two kilometers north of Vieux-Boucau, the crowd thins out. Messanges is a village of campsites in the pines with two beach accesses, Plage Sud and Plage Nord, and on an autumn groundswell its banks throw some of the hollowest, heaviest waves between the Adour and Moliets. Most days it is a normal Landes beach, empty compared with its neighbours; on the right day it is a shallow, sucking take-off and a fast wall that shuts down without warning. The paddle is long, the currents are real, and nobody is watching from the sand in October.

The ocean side of the Cap Ferret peninsula, and the wildest beach in this guide. There is no town, only a car park in the forest and a long walk over the dune, and then a beach that goes on in both directions with nobody on it. Le Truc Vert takes the full swell and holds it: on a solid autumn day the peaks are thick, fast and heavy, with currents that move you a hundred meters between waves. It is the one for experienced surfers who want space more than company. Watch a set from the dune before committing, and never paddle out here alone when it is big.