Dune du Pyla

One of the most impressive creations of Mother Nature I’ve ever been do is the Great Dune of Pyla.
It’s the tallest dune in Europe and located in La Teste-de-Buch in the Arcachon Bay area, France. It has a volume of about 60,000,000 m³, measuring around 500 m wide from east to west and 2.7 km in length from north to south. Its height is 108 meters above sea level. The dune is a famous tourist destination with more than one million visitors per year.

I visited the Dune during a school exchange in 2007. We had to walk along a short trail for approximately 10 minutes to reach the Dune. If you want to climb it you have to go up some stairs. From the top you have a fantastic view over the Atlantic Ocean as the dune is directly next to it. The weather was amazing, the sun was shining and the sky was clear and blue.

 I love the feeling of warm sand under your toes, how you sink into it up to your ankles and the movement of swirling it up in the air.  On top of the dune we had a pick nick with delicious French food. We were relaxing in the sun and enjoying the sound of seagulls flying over our heads.

After some time we decided to go down to the coast. We started to run down all together and we were screaming of joy and happiness! That was that once in a life time moment I could share with my amazing classmates! :)
 
One of my crazy friends even decided to go for a swim in the ocean. He was shouting like a girl because it was that cold ;) 

As I am totally into the ocean, sand and everything that goes along with it, I really loved this place!