Tag: france

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Boulogne-sur-Mere #50places2025

The last time I was in Boulogne was probably sometime in the early 1980s, or even the late 1970s. It wasn’t really a place we stayed long at, usually it was an overnight stay after crossing the channel in our sailing yacht before we then moved down to Dieppe or Fecamp.

In July I did a driving holiday to France staying outside Calais in Guines. One of the places we did visit whilst we were there was Boulogne.

We arrived and followed the signs for the parking, but we had a little trouble in parking, as there was a market on. We found an underground car park so we parked there.

We walked down to the harbour and then down to the seafront. We walked along the breakwater.

Walked back into town and up to the castle. The castle was really impressive as were the old city walls. I did initially think that the city walls would be like those in York with a narrow walkway, but no these walls were very wide and there was lots of room as we walked.

Inside the walls were some lovely old traditional French buildings.

I did wonder if any of the town would be familiar, it wasn’t. Though I think a lot had changed over the last forty or so years.

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La Coupole Centre D’histoire #50places2025

La Coupole Centre D’histoire

In July I did a holiday to France staying outside Calais in Guines. One of the places we did visit whilst there was La Coupole Centre D’histoire.

This was a planned German V2 launching base, which was abandoned following a devastating bombing raid by the RAF. Still in existence are some of the tunnels and the huge concrete cupola.

The museum was excellent, though slightly reliant on using a tablet computer as you walked around with videos on it.

We really enjoyed our visit to the museum and what I anticipated would be a couple of hours at most, actually we spent most of the day there and even then didn’t experience all that was on offer.

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Cap Gris-Nez #50places2025

The closest part of France to the United Kingdom is Cap Gris-Nez in Nord in France. In July I did a driving holiday to France staying outside Calais in Guines. One of the places we did visit whilst we were there was Cap Gris-Nez. You can see England quite easily from the top of the cliff. There are quite a few footpaths around as well. The area was heavily fortified during the second world war and the remains of the various bunkers and fortification can be seen. Also there was the remains of a castle built by Henry VIII.

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Guines #50places2025

Over the last few years I have visited France quite a bit. 

I first visited France as a child where it was a regular destination for family holidays, day trips and school exchanges. There was then about a ten year gap. I remember doing a ferry trip to Caen in the mid 1990s, and visiting Honfleur.

I then didn’t visit France until September 2018 when I took the train from London to Brest in Brittany, via Paris, for a library conference. It was quite a fleeting visit. I travelled from London on one day and then travelled back the following day. Arriving at Gard de Nord on the way back I realised that I had been to Paris, but in name only. I had a little time before I needed to pass through passport control, so I popped out onto the street. Took a few photographs and admired the street scene.

My next visit to France was a holiday to Brittany in 2019. We also went to France the following year this time staying in Picardy and visiting Paris.

Last year I was in France again on a driving holiday to France, Germany, Luxembourg, and Belgium.

I did a day trip to Calais and Dunkerque earlier this year.

In July I did another holiday to France staying outside Calais in Guines. This is a lovely French town complete with shops, a regular market and some nice historical buildings. It was more of a base for us, but I did explore some of the town when I was there.

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Dunkerque #50places2025

DFDS had emailed an offer celebrating twenty five years of their Dover Dunkerque (Dunkirk) route, you could buy a ticket for a day trip for just £25. What a bargain I thought. The last time I had been on a day trip to France was in the 1980s. Then you either caught the Sealink, the Townsend Thoresen ferry, or a hovercraft!

I arrived at Dover in plenty of time for my 0800 ferry crossing. After passport control, I drove around to the DFDS check in. The man there said would I like to catch an earlier ferry to Calais at 0740, which would arrive fifty minutes earlier into France. I didn’t hesitate, would be nice to see Calais, which I had not visited since the 1980s, through had driven through a few times since after catching a ferry or driving through the tunnel.

Having spent some time in Calais I headed up the A16 to Dunkerque.

I had visited Dunkerque last summer on my way back from a driving holiday to France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg. We stopped and stayed there the night before catching the ferry the next day back to Dover. As a result I didn’t do much exploring and didn’t even have the chance to get to the infamous beach. So I had always planned to go back. The DFDS offer gave me that opportunity.

Having arrived in Dunkerque, I drove to the beach and parked. I went to the Operation Dynamo Museum which was excellent and good value at €8.

After exploring the museum I went for a walk along the promenade. Saw the infamous dunes of Dunkerque beach from where the 1940 evacuation had taken place. I had intended to walk quite a bit of the beach, stop for some food or coffee. However, it was getting colder and then it started to rain. A lot of places were closed as well. So, I walked back to the car.

After a quick visit to a supermarket, I headed to the centre of the town to do some more exploring.

After coffee, I decided I would go up the tower in the Beffroi Saint-Éloi de Dunkerque. There was a lift to the bells, but then you had to climb a very steep, narrow, low headroom spiral staircase. The views were impressive. I had to walk down the stairs backwards, so I didn’t bang my head.

As I left the tower it was raining. Went back to the place I had coffee and had another one. This time I had a dessert as well.

I did think about what to do next, but realised I was running out of time, the weather was unpredictable. So, I headed out of Dunkerque, but stopped at the large Carrefour. Lots of lovely things in there. I got a few more things and a loaf of bread, which I was expecting to be stale the following morning.

Left the supermarket with what I thought was just about the right amount of time, but I got to the terminal with plenty of time to spare.

At times it was quite surreal, knowing that I was only in France for the day

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Calais #50places2025

I hadn’t planned to visit Calais, but I recently ended up there.

DFDS had emailed an offer celebrating twenty five years of their Dover Dunkerque route, you could buy a ticket for a day trip for just £25. What a bargain I thought.

I arrived at Dover in plenty of time for my 0800 ferry crossing. After passport control, I drove around to the DFDS check in. The man there said would I like to catch an earlier ferry to Calais at 0740, which would arrive fifty minutes earlier into France. I didn’t hesitate, would be nice to see Calais, which I had not visited since the 1980s, through had driven through a few times since after catching a ferry or driving through the tunnel.

As passport control is done at Dover, when I arrived in Calais, I was able to drive straight off the ferry and off to the town. Whilst I was on the ferry I had looked at parking places and had put one into Waze. Unfortunately as I drove there, following the route, one of the roads I went down was closed for roadworks. I made the detour, but got to the car park in the end.

I could see the Town Hall, which I remembered from my visits there in the 1980s. After taking a photograph or two I headed towards what I thought was the beach.

Nothing seemed very familiar, but it had been over forty years since I was last in Calais walking about. After checking a map at a shopping centre and realised I was going in the wrong direction. At the Town Hall I had turned left, when I should have turned right!

This time it started becoming more familiar. There had been some development, the Place D’Armes was very different to how I remembered it. When I went to Calais in the 1980s this was very much either a car park, or where the market was. I remember there been a fair there on one visit. 

I walked to the marina and then I walked to the Phare de Calais (lighthouse) before walking back to the car and preparing to head off to my originally planned destination of Dunkerque.

I enjoyed my nostalgic visit to Calais, it was a pity the weather wasn’t better.

This year I have planned to visit fifty places.

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Back to Honfleur

In July I made a trip over to France and Germany. The first stage of the trip was a sea crossing from Newhaven to Dieppe. We were staying at a campsite close to the village of Nesles-la-Vallée, however after Dieppe, we went to Fecamp and then crossed the Seine and went to Honfleur.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s we would go on family holidays to Normandy and Honfleur was one of those places that stuck in my young memory. It was so very different to the English towns I had experienced, with it’s tall buildings, narrow streets and strange shops. Back then I didn’t have a camera at first and when I eventually did get one it was a 110 film instamatic style camera. This was a terrible camera (from Boots I think it was) and the quality of the prints were awful, covered in all those stickers and usually blurred. Well you could blame the photographer.

In the late 1990s I made a weekend trip to Normandy, and I did want to visit Honfleur again. This time I took my 35mm SLR and took some photographs, which I posted to the blog back in 2015.

This time I used my iPhone 13 to take some photographs.

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Nesles-la-Vallée

In July I made a trip over to France and Germany. The first stage of the trip was a sea crossing from Newhaven to Dieppe. We then stayed at a campsite close to the village of Nesles-la-Vallée.

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Dieppe at Dawn

In July I made a trip over to France and Germany. The first stage of the trip was a sea crossing from Newhaven to Dieppe and we arrived in Dieppe at 5am.

The last time I had been in Dieppe was in the 1980s on a family holiday. It was surprising how little had changed. Though the railway and harbour station had disappeared.

Combined rail and ferry services ended in 1994 after Stena Line, at that time operating as Stena Sealink on the Newhaven-Dieppe and Dover-Calais crossings, had transferred to a new terminal on the other side of the harbour. These changes coincided with the opening of the Channel Tunnel and the concomitant withdrawal of all SNCF Channel boat trains. The whole station was demolished in early 1995, and virtually no physical traces now remain.

The castle was still there at the top of the cliff.

Many of the restaurants and shops I had experienced in the 1980s were no longer there, which wasn’t a surprise, but the Monoprix department store was still there.

We had intended to have breakfast in the port, stay a a few hours and potentially even have lunch. However there wasn’t anything open (we could see) so headed off to Fecamp instead.