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 | Royan Downtown car rental - Travel Guide |  |
Before World War II, ROYAN, at the mouth of the Gironde, was a fashionable resort for the bourgeoisie. It is still popular - though no longer exclusive - and the modern town has lost its elegance to the dreary rationalism of 1950s town planning: broad boulevards, car parks, shopping centres, planned greenery. Ironically, the occasion for this planners' romp was provided by Allied bombing, an attempt to dislodge a large contingent of German troops who had withdrawn into the area after the D-Day landings. But the beaches - the most elegant and fashionable of which is in the suburb of Pontaillac to the northwest - are beautiful: fine pale sand, meticulously harrowed and raked near town, and wild, pine-backed and pounded by the Atlantic to the north.
The Town
One sight worth seeing in Royan is the 1950s church of Notre-Dame, designed by Gillet and Hébrard, in a tatty square behind the main waterfront. Though the concrete has weathered badly, the overall effect is dramatic and surprising. Tall V-sectioned columns give the outside the appearance of massive fluting, and a stepped roof-line rises dramatically to culminate in a 65-metre bell tower, like the prow of a giant vessel. The interior is even more striking: using uncompromisingly modern materials and designs, the architects have succeeded in out-Gothicking Gothic. The stained-glass panels, in each of which a different tone predominates, borrow their colours from the local seascapes - oyster, sea, mist and murk - before a sudden explosion of colour in the Christ figure above the altar.
The most attractive area in Royan is around boulevard Garnier, which leads southeast from Rond-Point-de-la-Poste along the beach and once housed Parisian high society in purpose-built, Belle Époque holiday villas. Some of these have survived, including Le Rêve, 58 bd Garnier, where Émile Zola lived and wrote; Kosiki, 100 av du Parc (running parallel to bd Garnier), a nineteenth-century folly of Japanese inspiration; and Tanagra, 34 av du Parc, whose facade is covered in sculptures and balconies.
Various cruises are organized from Royan in season, including one to the Cordouan lighthouse, erected by the Black Prince and commanding the mouth of the Gironde River. There's a twenty-minute ferry crossing (one way: pedestrians & cycles 17F/?2.59, motorbikes 55F/?8.38, cars 123F/?18.75) to the headland on the other side of the Gironde, the Pointe de Grave, from where a bicycle trail and the GR8 head down the coast through the pines and dunes to the bay of Arcachon. |
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