ARCACHON, the Queen of the Basin
Simple hamlet at the end of the nineteenth century, Arcachon springing from the dunes,
Become under the impulse of the brothers Pereire, a seaside resort on the front,
Born on a hill with scents of iodine and pine sap, the Winter City,
Shortly became the little Queen of the Atlantic, dear to Eugenie the Empress of yesterday.
In the middle of the "fofolles", villas rivaling elegance and eccentricity,
Magnificent site to plunge the head in the stars of the Silver Coast,
And admire the ballet of the shooting stars in the company of Cassiopeia,
In a joyful blend of English manor style or fringing Swiss chalets.
In the beautiful period, high places and artists occupy his dwellings with decorative overload,
Disseminated in the "pignada", accessible by a labyrinth of flowered paths,
Their name is Teresa, whose Moorish appearance in his speculative scenography,
Of stones and bricks, ornamented with ceramics and ironworks.
Surrounded by balconies and lambrequins chiseled at the small point,
Toledo, the "lady in lace" deserves ample nickname,
As for Trocadero she claims the same love of wood worked passionately,
Offering at the sight its dormer windows with overflowing and its balustrade in doublet.
The basin, a world apart, water and sand, currents and islands
Like Polynesian atolls and small conchyophilous ports,
Here the oyster with gables on the street, in the cellars to sort and to taste cheap,
Supple and iodized it is accompanied by a bite of white of the between Deux-Mers.
Staked by the "pignots", the oyster parks shelter the tiles limed,
Collectors used to fix the spat which after eight months are "detroted"
Separated from the tile to continue their growth in the "pockets" grilled,
Protecting them from greedy predators, starfish and crabs.
By cruising in a skein of "esteys", aboard their elongated pinnacles,
The oyster farmers transport their oysters in their colored sheds,
Sea way to follow scrupulously to avoid stranding on a bench,
Like that of Arguain, a tongue of sand wandering under the action of the sea and the winds.
In balance, between sky and sea, the "tchanque" huts perched on their stilts,
Like a watchtower erected in the foreshore, watch the bird island, deprived of hunting,
Winter paradise of migratory birds, heron-keeper, feeding in eelgrass,
Or white elanion pacing the "mattes", those salted meadows with fallow.
In this empire of the pine, the ranks fed by the resinous soldiers to the ocean,
While the collectors, with the "piqué" gesture practiced with "lo hapchot"
This ax with curved beak, bleed these "golden trees" with fingering to pot,
The rosin drawn from the resin pleasantly sings the strings of the violins.
Like a Saharan desert in the heart of Gironde, the Dune du Pilat stretches its crest under Aole,
Like a large erg of sand caught in a sling between the pine forest and the furious ocean,
This sandy mastodon described by Montaigne as "large montioles
Moving arena which march half a league in front of them and gain from the country ".
In this woolly atmosphere it is sweet on the basin of Gujan-Mestras,
The town with seven ports, fiefs of the oyster at Le Canon housed at the bottom of its proud conche,
With its authentic huts draped with garlands of hollyhocks,
Until Piraillan where his wooden chapel is lost in the forest and its rubbish.
We will finish our escapade in the treasures of the lagoon by L'Herbe,
A small oyster port where Valentine Des PUJOLS, nicknamed Titi the memory of the verb,
Describing with passion the construction of the Hotel de la Plage, pimpante construction
Built to offer "a real hard canteen" to resiners and lumberjacks.
L’ARIÉ….JOIE