Parc Mauresque sits at the heart of Arcachon's Ville d'Hiver, the ambitious hilltop "Winter City" built in the 1860s by the Pereire brothers. Their Midi Railway company had already transformed this sleepy fishing village into a fashionable resort. The park was conceived before a single villa was built: the plan required a casino first, and everything else would follow.

The Casino Mauresque, completed in 1862, was something to behold. Moorish arches, intricate earthenware tiles, glass domes and a music hall decorated by the same craftsmen who worked on Bordeaux's Grand Théâtre. Aristocrats danced, gamblers played, and the bourgeoisie admired views across the bay. In 1977, it burned to the ground. The park, now a four-hectare arboretum, survived.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours use the park as the culminating point of Arcachon's Winter City walk, tracing how one railway company's ambitions shaped an entire hilltop neighbourhood, villa by villa.