aquitaine: hourtin

After Pointe de Grave, those travelling due south will spend many hours driving, days cycling, or a week or two walking, before the pine forests of Les Landes finally run out at Biarritz. It is pretty flat too, in fact rather featureless, maybe even boring. Very few habitations and only occasional small villages.

So it's as well to take the time to make diversions to the coast here and there. That coast has what we reckon must be one of the longest continuous beaches in Europe, mostly fringed with dunes and the ever present pine forests. Most likely you'll divert to one of the occasional but well used seaside resorts. Most of these adopt the name of the nearest inland town or village and get 'plage' or océan stuck on the end to differentiate it from the original settlement. There isn't much variation on this huge beach stretch and yet it is surprisingly attractive, beautiful even. The roar of the surf is constant. We had a splendid week in an out-of-season Lacanau-Océan. Fantastic. The beach felt endless: very big; and it is big. It goes all the way from the Gironde to Spain, with just one interruption for the Basin d'Arcachon. Fabulous sands.

For sea–going vessels the Aquitaine coast, as described above, is almost featureless, even now with the growth of various resorts (they all look rather alike anyway from out at sea) so the few lighthouses along this coastal stretch have the important role of location location location. After Pointe de Grave there are only four of them, if we include Biarritz.

Hourtin was built for that express purpose: to light a dark coast. It has two towers and used to show lights from both, distinctive enough to avoid confusion with other phares around the Gironde estuary. They were built in 1863 from bricks made on site. The towers are quite similar, as you'd expect, but now only the north tower shines forth; the southern tower's optic and lantern were removed in 1894 and the tower abandoned until 1964 when someone decided it could be used as a satellite tracking station. Hence all that kit on the top as seen in my picture (top right). The two towers are 200 metres apart and fenced off by the military. They sit on the highest dune between the coast and the Lac d'Hourtin, quite a bit back from the sea but the roar of the surf is still much in audio–evidence. No sign of anyone in attendance when we graced the site with our presence in 2018.

The lighthouse has a focal plane of 55 metres which is 180ft and exhibits a white light, which flashes every five seconds, seen up to 23 nautical miles away. It's about 27 metres tall including the lantern and gallery. So what does that tell us? It tells us that the lighthouse was built about 28 metres above sea level. There is a brick built keeper's house falling into disrepair (outside the fencing) and other seemingly unused light station buildings. Huelse (bless him) has saved a historic postcard view for us, well worth a look. Hourtin is a Monument Historique.

The site is some six kilometres south of Hourtin-Plage off a road that is closed to motor traffic in the holiday season but when we turned up in spring 2018 we drove it legitimately (it was open to us) and we continued south to come out almost at Lacanau-Océan.

I read somewhere that the memorable bust of Augustin Jean Fresnel, the Fr. optics supremo of the early 19th century you will have read about in earlier posts, was for some reason kept at this lighthouse. A bit off the beaten track, what? Not open to the public either. Nowadays the bust (sculpted by David d'Angers) has pride of place in the King's Chamber, in Cordouan.

The optic at Hourtin is a four panel unit with four lenses. I imagine the box-like structure revolves slowly round the lamp to produce the five second interval between each flash. There are no colour sectors here.

Photos—mine. Lighthouse illustrations— Jean Benoît Héron.