Before World War II, ROYAN , at the mouth of the Gironde, was a fashionable resort for the bourgeoisie. It is still popular - though no longer exclusive - and the modern town has lost its elegance to the dreary rationalism of 1950s town planning: broad boulevards, car parks, shopping centres, planned greenery. Ironically, the occasion for this planners' romp was provided by Allied bombing, an attempt to dislodge a large contingent of German troops who had withdrawn into the area after the D-Day landings. But the beaches - the most elegant and fashionable of which is in the suburb of Pontaillac to the northwest - are beautiful: fine pale sand, meticulously harrowed and raked near town, and wild, pine-backed and pounded by the Atlantic to the north.