From the 18th until 21st of May of 2023 I did part of the EuroVelo 1 cycling path (AKA La Vélodyssée), from Arcachon (next to Bordeaux) until Bayonne (in the Basque Country). It is also a part of some alternative paths of the Way of Saint James (Camino de Santiago), such as the English Way (also known as the the “Soulac Way” our the “Coastline Way”), a shorter alternative to the French Way. We traversed the so-called “French Silver Coast”, which is the longest European continuous sand beach, extending itself for more than 120 Km. Its unique location provides a unique landscape combining dunes, the Landes forest and the Atlantic Ocean, all at once!
We started in Arcachon, from where we went to visit the famous Great Dune of Pilat, the tallest sand dune in Europe. It’s 500 m wide, 2.7 Km long and more than 100 m tall. It offers an unreal panoramic that combines ocean, desert and forest. We continued our trip further South, witnessing the desolating consequences of the wildfire that burnt more than 30 000 hectares in the area. The first day of the trip ended in Biscarrosse, known for its warm water lake and its relevance in the history of the hydro-aviation.
After passing Mimizan, the first highlight of the second day was Contis and its famous lighthouse, which is at the exact same distance of Biarritz as it is from Arcachon. We then arrived to the beach of Vieille-Saint-Girons, a town half-devoured by dunes where we found some very pintoresque buildings as well as the first bunker of the trip. The beach reached as far as the eye could see in both directions and it was almost desert, except of a few surfers and us.
In our third and last cycling day we left the Sain-Girons beach and arrived to Vieux-Boucau-les-Bains for lunchtime, where we ate next to their Courant de Soustons, a very interesting salty water lake connected to the ocean and containing the Port d’Albert island. We then kept going until reaching Hossegor, one of the world’s surf capitals. Nearby there is Capbreton, another famous surf spot, but it also hides an unique underwater topology, great fresh fish and seafood and an impressive beach filled with surfers and bunkers. The last stop of the day was Bayonne, where we spent the night before taking our train back.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:18 Arcachon
00:38 Dune du Pilat
01:23 Remains of the 2022 Wildfire
02:10 Biscarrosse
03:04 Contis
03:23 Saint-Girons Beach, Bunker and Surfers
04:44 Cycling Path
05:11 Boucau-les-Bains
05:30 Hossegor
05:55 Capbreton Bunkers and Surfers
06:39 Bayonne Bunker and City
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I recorded the video with an Akaso V50X action camera, a DJI Mavic Mini foldable drone and a Pocophone X3 Pro smartphone. I editted it with DaVinci Resolve 18, I used some audio effects from Freesound and I used Canva to do the thumbnail. I tried using YouTube’s Audio Library instead of UppBeat. Also, I drafted several thumbnails until ending up with one that I liked. It was challenging to match the colors from the three different cameras I used to record the shots and take the pictures, and the color of some of the clips were so terrible that I had to use a lot of color correction to end up with half-decent versions of them that I could use in the video.
Music from the YouTube Audio Library:
Girl on Top (Amy Lynn & the Honeymen) – First day
Spring of Deception (Density & Time) – Sunrise timelapse
Breeze (Telecasted) – Second day
Enough (NEEFX) – Third day
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