Postcards From France

More memories, this time from Family Holidays in Northern France (1978-2017)…

On This Day – Boulogne, France

Even though travel restrictions are easing I am not yet minded to risk it so I still have no new stories to post so I continue to go through my picture archives and see where I was on this day at any time in the last few travelling years.

On 11th August 2010 I was in France in the Northern port city of Boulogne.  I have been to Boulogne several times and I am happy to declare it one of my favourite cities in all of France.

I like Boulogne, I like Northern France, I especially like Northern France in August because all of the French people have gone south leaving the north for us Brits and the asylum seekers trying to get a boat to cross the English Channel.

The old town is built within the original Roman walls and has recently been well restored and it was in complete contrast to the concrete and glass of the sea front and the modern glitzy shopping streets.  Here is the beating heart of a medieval city with history gently oozing from every corner with a castle, a cathedral and narrow streets lined with charming properties, little shops, inviting cafés and bars.

From the car park we walked along the main street full of interesting shops and busy restaurants and under the walls of the huge cathedral which was rebuilt in the nineteenth century as a symbol of the revival of the French Catholic Church.  During the 1789 Revolution the old cathedral had been closed, Catholicism was replaced by order of Robespierre by ‘The Cult of the Supreme Being” and Christian worship forbidden.  The Church was declared the property of the State and then dismantled and sold for building projects, stone by stone.  In 1802 Napoleon reinstated the Catholic Church in France.

The medieval cathedral was the site of a shrine to ‘Our Lady of Boulogne’ a representation of a vision that appeared in Boulogne in or around the year 646 and which arrived in a boat without sails, oars, or sailors, on which stood a wooden statue of the Virgin holding the Child Jesus in her arms.  The French Revolutionaries didn’t have a lot of regard for this sort thing and so at the same time as they destroyed the cathedral they burned the priceless wooden statue as well.

Anyway, the church was rebuilt in the nineteenth century complete with a massive dome, one of the largest in Europe, and inside there is a modern replica of ‘Our Lady of Boulogne’ which is one of four that were sculptured in 1943 and toured France until 1948 when it was known as ‘The Lady of the Great Return’ and is today symbolic of the reconciliation between nations.

This was nice I thought, such a shame that we in UK have foolishly chosen to turn our back on Europe…

From the cathedral we walked along the Rue de Lille and negotiated the pavement table barricades scattered almost randomly across the pedestrianised street and then to the Hotel de Ville with its immaculate gardens like a green  oasis in the centre of the cramped city where we stopped for a while and enjoyed the hot sunshine and the contrast of a cool beer under the shadow of the city’s twelfth century UNESCO World Heritage Site medieval Belfry.

Inside the town hall there was free entry to the Tower that included a guided tour and history of the building which was helpfully given in English as well as French.  There was a long climb with a couple of stops for informative narrative and there were good views from the top of the tower and we were lucky to be part of only a small group of visitors because we had time and space to enjoy the rooftop vista.

We left the old town by a gate next to the Castle Museum and I am forever amazed at the bits of trivia that I pick up on my travels because who would have guessed that inside is the most important exhibition of masks from Alaska in the whole world?  I couldn’t help wondering why the most important exhibition of masks from Alaska isn’t in Alaska?

After the break we walked half of the walls and then returned to the car to go to the fishing port to find some lunch and after we had some difficulty finding a parking spot we strolled casually down the hill into the town past the Nausicaa Aquarium, one of the largest aquarium museums in France.

We strolled along the busy docks which, it turns out, is the biggest fishing port in France and there is a large fishing fleet including deep-sea trawlers and factory ships, as well as smaller sea-going and inshore fishing boats.  A third of France’s fresh fish catch is landed here, and a huge quay-side fish processing factory makes 20% of the nation’s tinned fish, and half of the frozen fish, fish fingers and other fish based ready meals.

At a seafront restaurant we asked for menus but things went spectacularly wrong when an unexpected strong gust of wind blew my glass of beer over straight over.  It was getting quite windy now so we tried two or three different tables and then abandoned the seafront lunch idea and returned instead to the shelter of the old town where perhaps we should have stayed in the first place.

Here we selected a restaurant on Rue de Lille and ordered what we thought was going to be a snack but turned out to be quite enormous meals which, although we didn’t know it at the time was going to spoil our evening meal.  Mum didn’t enjoy her Welsh Rarebit, Alan had an oversize omelette, Richard had a pizza that would have been sufficient for all four of us but I did get the pot of moules marinière that I had been promising myself.

Click on an image to scroll through the Gallery…

A Postcard From Northern France

My favourite part of all of France.

Something like ten-million British travellers arrive in Calais each year and then without looking left or right, or stopping for even a moment head for the motorways and the long drive south and in doing so they miss the treat of visiting this Anglo-neglected part of France; the Côte d’Opale is a craggy, green, undulating and often dramatic coastline stretching for eighty miles between the port towns of Calais and the Baie de la Somme and the mouth of the river.

English tourists may avoid it but it has been long prized by the French and the Belgians, who enjoy the informal seafood restaurants in fishing villages dotted along the coast and the miles of intriguing coves and sandy beaches that run all the way down this coast that looks across at the south coast of England and leaks away inland to a glorious countryside.

Click on an image to scroll through the Gallery…

Northern France, Boulogne-Sur-Mer

After we left the British Military Cemetery at Terlincthun we drove directly to the old town of Boulogne and were fortunate to find the last remaining vacant parking space inside the old stone walls.  I have been to Boulogne several times before and I am happy to declare it one of my favourite cities in all of France.

The old town is built within the original Roman walls and has recently been well restored and it was in complete contrast to the concrete and glass of the sea front and the shopping streets.  Here is the beating heart of a medieval city with history oozing from every corner with a castle, a cathedral and narrow streets lined with charming properties, little shops, cafés and bars.

From the car park we walked along the main street full of interesting shops and busy restaurants and under the walls of the huge cathedral which was rebuilt in the nineteenth century as a symbol of the revival of the French Catholic Church after the 1789 Revolution in which the old cathedral was closed and worship forbidden before it was declared the property of the State and then dismantled and sold, stone by stone.

The medieval cathedral was the site of a shrine to ‘Our Lady of Boulogne’ a representation of a vision that appeared in Boulogne in or around the year 646 and which arrived in a boat without sails, oars, or sailors, on which stood a wooden statue of the Virgin holding the Child Jesus in her arms.  The French Revolutionaries didn’t have a lot of regard for this sort thing and so at the same time as they destroyed the cathedral they burned the priceless wooden statue as well.

Anyway, the church was rebuilt in the nineteenth century complete with a massive dome, one of the largest in Europe, and inside there is a modern replica of ‘Our Lady of Boulogne’ which is one of four that were sculptured in 1943 and toured France until 1948 when it was known as ‘The Lady of the Great Return’ and is today symbolic of the reconciliation between nations.

From the cathedral we walked along the Rue de Lille and negotiated the pavement table barricades scattered almost randomly across the pedestrianised street and then to the Hotel de Ville with its immaculate gardens like an oasis in the centre of the cramped city where we stopped for a while and enjoyed the hot sunshine and the contrast of a cool beer under the shadow of the city’s twelfth century UNESCO World Heritage Site medieval Belfry.

For the record France has thirty-eight sites, the same as Germany, but is six behind Spain (44) and eleven behind Italy (49) which incidentally tops the World table for the number of sites.

Inside the town hall there was free entry to the Belfry Tower that included a guided tour and history of the building which was helpfully given in English as well as French.  There was a long climb with a couple of stops for informative narrative and there were good views from the top of the tower and we were lucky to be part of quite a small group of visitors because we had time and space to enjoy the rooftop vista.

After the break we walked half of the walls and then returned to the car to go to the fishing port to find some lunch and after we had some difficulty finding a parking spot we strolled casually down the hill into the town past the Nausicaa Aquarium, one of the largest aquarium museums in France.  We walked along the busy docks that smelled of fish and this was a surprise because Boulogne, it turns out, is the biggest fishing port in France and there is a large fishing fleet including deep-sea trawlers and factory ships, as well as smaller sea-going and inshore fishing boats.  A third of France’s fresh fish catch is landed here, and a huge quay-side fish processing factory makes 20% of the nation’s tinned fish, and half of the frozen fish, fish fingers and other fish based ready meals.

We found a seafront restaurant and asked for menus but things went spectacularly wrong when an unexpected strong gust of wind blew my glass of beer over straight into my mum’s lap which put her off her lunch.  It was getting quite windy now so we tried two or three different tables and then abandoned the seafront lunch idea and returned instead to the shelter of the old town where perhaps we should have stayed in the first place.

Here we selected a restaurant on Rue de Lille and ordered what we thought was going to be a snack but turned out to be quite enormous meals which, although we didn’t know it at the time was going to spoil our evening meal.  Mum didn’t enjoy her Welsh Rarebit, Alan had an oversize omelette, Richard had a pizza that would have been sufficient for all four of us but I did get the pot of moules marinière that I had been promising myself.

Lunch over we tried to walk some of it off by visiting the other half the old town walls and alongside the Castle Museum and the gardens on the other side and then we called it a day and returned to the hotel where we made matters worse by opening the bar and drinking more beer in the couple of hours before our evening meal.

Northern France, Eurotunnel and The Côte d’Opale

2013 is a special birthday year for my mum as she noisily tips over from her seventy-ninth year to become an octogenarian and as part of the celebrations she invited my brother Richard and me to join her and her partner Alan to visit the north east corner of France and stay at at a hotel that they especially like, the Chateaux de Tourelles in the village of Le Wast, just a short distance away from one of my favourite French towns, Boulogne-Sur-Mer.

Normally I have a preference for travelling by sea and always enjoy the short, weather unpredictable, ferry crossing but they like the Eurotunnel shuttle so on this occasion we took the thirty-minute subterranean route rather than risk the choppy seas of the English Channel and the mad rush to the car deck upon docking.  It was busy at the terminal and on the following day the service set a new record for numbers of vehicles at almost sixteen-thousand. I had been through the tunnel before on Eurostar but never on the vehicle carrying train so this was a new experience for me and overall I have to say that although it is quick and convenient I think I prefer the boats and the rugby scrum.

After arrival disembarkation was quick and we were in the Cite d’Europe, which is an international shopping centre that was constructed as part of the Channel Tunnel project and is designed to bring English shoppers across to France to stock up on cheap booze and cigarettes.  The place has one hundred and forty shops and restaurants but we made straight for Carrefour and the substantial alcohol section where we piled the trolley with cheap beer and wine and then set off for the short trip towards Boulogne but avoiding the direct route down the A16 and driving sedately down the Côte d’Opale instead.

Something like ten-million British travellers arrive in Calais each year and then without looking left or right, or stopping for even a moment head for the motorways and the long drive south and in doing so they miss the treat of visiting this Anglo-neglected part of France; the Côte d’Opale is a craggy, green, undulating and often dramatic coastline stretching for forty kilometres between the port towns of Calais and Boulogne.  English tourists may avoid it but it has been long prized by the French and the Belgians, who enjoy the informal seafood restaurants in fishing villages dotted along the coast and the miles of intriguing coves and sandy beaches that run all the way down this coast that looks across at the south coast of England.

The coastline is punctuated with history, most of it bloody and violent and as soon as we could we found a place to stretch our legs at the Cap Blanc Nez about twenty minutes from the port where we strolled up to the breezy hilltop obelisk commemorating the Dover Patrol that kept the Channel free from U-boats during the First World War and then walked along paths surrounded on all sides by German World-War-Two gun emplacements and bunkers that were built here in anticipation of an Allied invasion.

These concrete defences are so well built and inconveniently indestructible that it is difficult to easily demolish and dispose of them so the answer seems to be to just leave them where they are and let nature do its work and simply let the grass grow around and over them because no one really wants to be reminded of this grim heritage any more and this approach seems to be very effective because five years after I first saw them there is now a lot less to see.

Our next stop was Cap Gris Nez, where France pokes its large chalky white de Gaulle like nose westwards towards Dover and where there are more remains of mighty bunkers that are slowly disappearing under the earth because this is where the Germans aimed their big guns on Britain during the Second World War. Windblown, isolated and perched high above the choppy waves bathed in the iridescent light which gave the Opal Coast its name, the headland was an exhilarating place to watch vessels passing by below in the English Channel and then to become alarmed by a few spots of rain that blew in with the clouds racing in from the west.

It was time for lunch now but Friday in France must be a day when no one goes to work because every town that we passed through was busy and chock full of cars so we drove through Wissant, Audreselles and Ambleteuse without stopping and finally found a parking space in Wimereux as the lunch-time rush finally  began to subside and we found a small bar for a beer and a snack before resuming our afternoon drive towards Boulogne and then to the Chateaux.

The sensible thing to do was to avoid Boulogne in late afternoon but we didn’t do the sensible thing and instead crawled through the traffic and then through the other side and on a thankfully open road to the small village of Le Wast and the Chateaux de Tourelles which lived up completely to the gushing reviews that promised us a wonderful hotel in extensive gardens, a good room and the prospect of an excellent evening meal. 

We unpacked, sorted out the bar, poured a drink and sat for a while and simply enjoyed the place until it was time to eat.

France 2010, Boulogne Sur Mer

We were all relieved to find that it wasn’t raining and it looked as though Camille’s welcome forecast was completely accurate because the weather this morning was in complete contrast to yesterday, the sun was already shining and the sky was a blank blue canvas.

We followed the early morning routine that we had already established, went to see the ducks and the hens, visited Camille and saw the rabbit and walked a while through the village before returning to the cottage for our usual farm house breakfast, part English, part continental but every day a perfect combination of the two.  On account of the good weather we did some washing and hung it on the line before we finally left the cottage and set off for Boulogne about twenty-five kilometres away.

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