La Baule Escoublac - LFRE

Date of Visit = various

Pilot: = Alan Pound

e-mail = Alan.Pound@aculab.com

Field Report

La Baule Escoublac (LFRE) is a small friendly airfield, with 950m of asphalt, no lights or approach aids, that is controlled at least some of the time, with Customs on 24H notice, and just 10 minutes taxi ride from the town. Just a few miles away to the east is St Nazaire (LFRZ) with 2400m and ILS, also with somewhat part-time control and customs at (I believe) 5H notice, and a little further east again is Nantes (LFRS) with 2900m, which is a serious regional airport, though still very usable for GA, and with good cheap car-hire just outside the terminal.

The resort of La Baule consists of three contiguous communities of La Pouliguen, La Baule, and Pornichet lying at the back of the five mile long, south facing beach. East of La Baule, behind a series of small sandy coves, are the communities of Ste Marguerite, St Marc and eventually St Nazaire, whilst to the west is a peninsula with several other small south-facing resorts including Batz-sur-Mer, a 'cote sauvage', and finally the fishing port of Le Croisic (a kind of Breton St Ives). This peninsula encloses an area of salt mashes to the north that have been used for centuries for the recovery of sea salt - you cannot go into any restaurant in this area without seeing "Sel du Guerande", which takes its name from the small walled town just a mile or so inland.

It is largely the beach that brings people to La Baule in the summer, and the sea front is developed rather like many UK resorts with a promenade, and a succession of hotels and apartments running right along the beach. The atmosphere however, is typically French and unhurried, and the shops, cafes and restaurants in the centres along the beach having a comfortable, unexploited feel to them. Building style in the older parts of La Baule is a kind of stone-built 'French Gothic', where each dwelling looks rather like a small chateau.

Ste Marguerite and St Marc are more typically French 'residence secondaire' territory, also with their share of nouveau Gothic, but also with much more recent accomodation, some of it quite up-market. It seems to result in a lot of quite comfortable and charming holiday lettings, set along shady avenues amongst pine trees upon a needle-strewn sandy soil, usually only a minute or so walk from a relatively quiet sandy beach surrounded by gentle cliffs.

Places to eat:

Taxi drivers have generally recommended the restaurant at L'Hermitage at the Le Pouliguen end of the beach, but so far I haven't been there (although taxi drivers are usually exactly right on such matters!)

Currently my own favorite restaurant is 'Sunsets', which is right on the beach, near the Casino at the Pornichet end of the resort, offering a chic but casual atmosphere in an 'orangery' style setting with wonderful views of the eponymous beach scene, and offering equally wonderful sea-food. There is often (in addition to the carte, and the usual fixed price 'menu') a set meal for two including a bottle of wine, to which I have been very pleased to succomb on every visit so far.

The Hotel Restaurant Sud-Bretagne, also in Pornichet, is my second favorite. A slightly strange mixture of French traditional and Art deco, also very strong on sea-food, with some excellent menu items (I will remember the langoustines and St Jacques, with Lotte (monkfish), and slices of caramelised apple, with a buerre blanc sauce flavoured slightly with curry, for a very long time - it sounds bizarre - but believe me.......)

The Hotel Normandy, on the station square at Pornichet, has quite excellent food for very modest prices, as does the 'Chalet Suisse' on the Ave General de Gaulle in La Baule.

Guerande, the walled town a few miles inland from La Baule, is worth a visit. It is much smaller, quieter and more 'well preserved' (Museum like) than for example Vannes, and without the lively atmosphere that the latter has to offer. It is however really quite pleasant, with several small restaurants near the centre, and a couple of establishments where one can sit outside under an umberella, overlooking the sun-baked square to the front of the church, enjoing a galette or a crepe, with a very pleasant glass of Muscadet or Sancerre, or perhaps the very palatable "Leffe" (or as a second choice, the rather similar abbey beer, "Affligem")

Le Croisic is also worth a day (and there is no shortage of places to eat there, although it is a little more "moules et frites".)