Michel wrote: 09 Oct 2022, 22:14The C3 took us to Biscarosse.
Ah, Biscarosse. I go back many years with Biscarosse, more correctly Biscarosse Plage as Biscarosse village is set further inland.
I first went there with my parents in the mid sixties as they worked their way down the Atlantic coast of France from Normandy every summer holiday. We had holidayed in Arcachon the previous year and wanted to move further on towards the Spanish border. We arrived in Biscarosse Plage and my memory is that it was like driving into a wild west town as the road was very dusty (it mightn't even have been tarmacked) and there were small covered wooden stalls set back from the road.
We stayed in the Hotel de la Plage and it really was next to the beach. We didn't stay there the first year as they were full but did manage it in succeeding years. The kindest way to describe the rooms was that they had faded glory. The ceilings of the bedrooms were very high and I was fascinated by the bidet. I don't remember anything about the food so it can't have been very memorable.
I did love the beach though. The Atlantic breakers were enervating and there was always a cooling breeze blowing in from the sea. This was to give me some trouble a year or two later. We went down to the beach and I was warned to not play out in the sun too much as it's easy to get sunburnt. I ignored that of course and that night the sunburn started to kick in. I was screaming with agony and I could barely stand my mother touching me to put sunburn lotion on. In fact, for many, many years afterwards I would shelter from the sun in all situations and there photos of me at the beach fully clothed and sheltering under an umbrella!
In 1971 I was 19 and had a summer holiday job between college and university. It paid a fantastic wage. I worked for a sub-contractors in a fertiliser factory stacking 35(?) Kg bags on a pallet. It was two day shifts, two night shifts and then two days off. The shifts were 12 hours but split so that you worked an hour on and an hour off. In the six weeks I was there I managed to amass something like £440. This was enough to use up my entire tax-free allowance for that year. For comparison the current standard Personal Allowance is £12,570.
So, I didn't go with my parents and brother that year. My mother sent me a post card which I am so pleased has survived the years. The post mark is 10-8-1971 and I've scanned it in so I can post it.
The HdlP is the white building with a curved ground floor room (the restaurant) in the centre. Even in the few years since we had first visited development was noticeable. The main road had been tarmacked and there was a smattering of new buildings. To the right of the hotel you can see two buildings that were even closer to the beach. I thought they were quite spooky and looked, to me, straight out of
The Addams Family or
The Munsters!
The houses are both still there as can be seen in this 2010 Google Street view image.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@44.44365 ... 312!8i6656
The hotel is seen on the right in this image. The building has been substantially developed over the years and the hotel is now 4* with menus and prices to match.
I don't think I went back to Biscarosse Plage with the family as we continued working our way down the Atlantic coast through the Pyrenees into Spain and it was 1984 before I returned with my new bride for a few days on our 3,000 mile honeymoon tour round France. I was horrified by the amount of development that had taken place and it was so commercialised. We stayed in the HdlP where the bedrooms had been subject to some mild development. We had our first evening meal there. It was disappointing. The duckling was so tough I couldn't get a knife through it. I called the waiter over and demonstrated how inedible it was by being unable rip it in two with my hands! We didn't have a second evening meal there and moved on in the tour after that.
Our next, and so far most recent, visit there was in 1989. By that time we had had our first child together and touring had finished. We hired a gîte on the Ile d'Oleron and shared it with my parents and my brother. We went out for a day trip drive from there with my brother. There had been even more development since my wife had been there but, of course, the difference for my brother was even greater. He was suitably horrified!
I can see on Street View how much more development has taken place in the intervening years and I've no do doubt that the 12 years since that there's been more. Is that better? Mmmm, I do have a certain wistfulness for the 1960s/70s!
I meant you could open a similar account and just use it for such needs! Or if you are on Signal you could send it to me that way but I don't do Whatsapp so that is not possible! 
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