The Hourtin lighthouse on the Atlantic coast, in the Gironde, is in fact made up of two lighthouses 200 m apart along a north-south axis built in 1860 and commissioned in 1863 on the coastal dunes that separate the ocean from the sea. lake of Hourtin-Carcans.
It was decided to erect two lighthouses so that their signals allow the ships to differentiate them from the lighthouses already installed at Cap Ferret and Cordouan. New techniques then appeared to extinguish the South lighthouse, in 1984, now occupied by the Directorate General of Armaments who installed an antenna there.
The architecture of the lighthouses was similar, that is to say square towers of 27 m high, masonry of exposed brick on stone substructure.
The range of the remaining lighthouse, now automated, is about 40 km.
Today listed in the inventory of historical monuments, lighthouses can not be visited but can be the object of a pleasant bike ride via the tracks crossing the forest of the town. Information on +33 5 56 03 21 01.
