Christmas at Mimizan

France, Christmas 2014: 25th – 27th December

Christmas Day

Our Christmas day spot at Biscarrosse Plage

Some cards and presents from family and friends

Well this marked our first Christmas away from home!  To try and get in the festive spirit we had a Poundland Christmas tree and a strip of tinsel around the top of the cab, as well as a few Christmas cards we received before we left and
some small presents from Jo’s parents to make sure we would have something to open on the day.

After having pain au chocolats for breakfast we were pleased to see that the sun had come out in time for our walk!  We explored through the woods until we made our way to the sand dunes, and had a walk along Biscarrossse beach.  The weather was pleasant, and by the time we’d made it to the beach we didn’t really need to be wearing our coats any more.  We didn’t spot any other people walking around so it was very peaceful, although we did spot another car in the car park so someone must have been in the woods somewhere.

View from the top of the dunes at Biscarrosse Plage

Aire Service Point at Biscarrosse Plage

Aire at Mimizan Plage

Jo cooking Christmas dinner!

After our walk we travelled to Mimizan Plage to stay at their Aire for the rest of Christmas day.  This Aire (€8 including water and EHU) was almost full, and it was the first Aire we had seen that was fairly busy on our travels.  There was 1 British Burstner there when we arrived but had later gone when we went past where they were parked. We attempted to see what channels we could pick up using the satellite receiver, but were unable to get a strong enough signal for the English satellite.  We did instead connect to the German satellite, which had a news channel that was in English, which we quickly discovered to be very repetitive.

We had a slightly non-traditional Christmas dinner of chicken and chorizo jambalaya (one of Matt’s favourites) and lots of Prosecco, and had a Skype session with Jo’s parents (we were unable to get hold of Matt’s parents at the time).

Boxing Day Onwards

On Boxing Day, we went for a bike ride around Mimizan Plage, and started to head back when the weather started to drizzle.  It remained calm enough that we could get the bikes back on the rack and get back inside without getting too wet, but the sky remained grey for the rest of the day.

View from the Aire at Gastes

We left Mimizan Plage and went to stay on an Aire in the nearby village of Gastes (€2 a night including fresh/grey water), which was by the lakeside of Hydrobase de Biscarosse next to the harbour.  While we were here, the weather really turned off during the night.  The van was shaking and rocking and the rain was really loud on the van, so we didn’t get much sleep.  In the morning the water was so rough that it looked more like a sea than a lake.  The weather didn’t show any signs of improving and we weren’t sure how long it would last, so we decided to give up on France for now and come back to see Dune du Pilat in the future.  Thankfully the van wasn’t stuck in the wet ground, and we managed to make our escape from the Aire and travelled south into Spain.