La Baule, France Hotels, Vacations, Tourism

There is something very surreal about emerging from the Brière to the coast at LA BAULE – an imposing, moneyed landscape where the dunes are no longer bonded together with scrub and pines, but with massive apartment buildings and luxury hotels. Sited on the long stretch of dunes that links the former island of Le Croisic to the mainland, it owes its existence to a storm in 1779 that engulfed the old town of Escoublac in silt from the Loire, and thereby created a wonderful crescent of sandy beach. Neither La Baule's permanence nor its affluence seems in any doubt these days. It's a resort that very … more »