Visit Le Cap Ferret

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Immortalized in Guillaume Canet’s film “Les petits mouchoirs”, Cap Ferret is not only a popular holiday resort. It’s also the gateway to the Bay of Arcachon, and offers a truly singular landscape. Here, it’s as if vacations never end…

  • Climb to the top of the lighthouse for a 360° view
  • Take a walk and an excursion to Île aux Oiseaux and see the cabanes tchanquées.
  • Walk in the sand and take a dip in the ocean


Cap Ferret sounds like a perpetual vacation. Here, everything is sand and nature, fragility and magic. The Lège Cap Ferret peninsula wasn’t always there. For only 2,000 years, this spit of sand has stretched out as if to better protect the Bay of Arcachon, whose entrance it bars. The sands here are shifting. There’s no risk of sinking into it, but every year, the cordon moves, eroding on one side and gaining on the other. Climb to the top of the lighthouse and you’ll be able to appreciate nature’s magnificent work: the entry passes to the Basin with their strong currents, the Banc d’Arguin drawn by these currents, and the Dune du Pilat standing majestically at the far end. A museum will give you all the explanations you need.

Excursion to Bird Island

A unique place you won’t find anywhere else. This island, covered at high tide, is overhung by “tchanquées” huts, built on stilts because their feet are in the water. Before being submerged by storms until the end of the 19th century, the island was home to cows and horses. Since then, it has been a fishing ground and surrounded by oyster beds. You can get there by canoe or motorboat. Several service providers in Cap Ferret can take you there.

Strolling on the sands of Cap Ferret

But Cap Ferret is really the place where you’ll love to stroll, eat an ice cream along the emblematic Bélisaire jetty, discover beautiful boutiques for a moment’s shopping, visit oyster-farming workshops and come back with a trove of oysters. Of course, you’ll need to take a dip in the ocean after you’ve laid down your towel on one of Aquitaine’s most beautiful beaches.