The Bay of Arcachon. ‘A desert yesterday, a village today and a city tomorrow!’ These words of the first mayor of Arcachon, Alphonse de Lamarck Pleasance, became the motto of the city. May the 2nd 1857 became the official birthday of Arcachon. The city would have remained a desert if Francois Legale hadn’t decided to build a hotel with thermal treatments here in 1823, strange idea as it was to do such a thing
