Restaurant Le Paris (red awning) in Rue de Metz
It was my mother’s 93rd birthday last Monday so we went out for dinner in Le Touquet. She had been using her i-Pad to search for a recommended restaurant and came up with Le Paris, a comfortable, well appointed place in the Rue de Metz, one of Le Touquet’s main shopping streets.
All three of us went for seafood and and were all very pleased with our choices. We ate, three courses each, from the menu at €29.90 and the bill, including a bottle of St Veran and 3 glasses of champagne came to €145. 50. The only problem was parking, because Le Touquet now has some fancy new system that I didn’t immediately understand. On arrival, it appeared that parking in rue de Metz was limited to one hour, but it turned out that I could have parked right outside the restaurant free from 8.00 in the evening until 9.00 the following morning. Unfortunately by the time I found that out, I had parked in a side street some distance away.
The interior of "Le Paris"
I have to award a special mention to the dessert chosen by me and my mother. It was a three-tier Poire Belle Hélène that was totally scrumptious and spectacular as well as generous with the rich chocolate sauce.
Today, Sue and I went for a walk of about 5.5km, from Fort Mahon through the dunes to Caen and back via the bar at the golf club. (You don’t have to be a member to go there). On the way back through the Belle-Dune holiday village we noticed a useful grocery/general store that was open (unusual on a Sunday) and also had a look at the menu posted outside the village restaurant. There is a 3 course menu of the day at €22 euros which looked interesting.
The Belle Dune restaurant is also making an offer which might appeal to Sandboys holiday tenants who don’t want to cook every night of their stay. The restaurant will do a deal on 3 course meals chosen from its extensive à la carte. Go three times during your stay, or the whole 7 days, if you like, (lunch or dinner time, your choice) and you have a choice of any starter, main course and dessert for 21 euros a head for adults. (I forgot to notice what the children ‘s meal price was.)
The holiday village facilities, including bike hire and occasional evening live music shows, are open to non-residents. Very handy if you’re holidaying at Sandboys Dune and want a change from the restaurants and brasseries in the town, as it’s only a short walk. Its also walkable from Sandboys Pearl, though it is a little farther. However, if you take the car, parking is easy and free.
Norman Spirit, the first ship on the new DFDS Dover Calais route
This year it should be easier than ever to find a convenient way to cross the channel for your Sandboys holiday. The Dover-Calais route is likely to be served by two new ferry companies, replacing the now defunct SeaFrance line.
The first new service to be announced is the DFDS Dover Calais service which will start on February 17. DFDS already operate the successful and popular Dover Dunkirk service (formerly Norfolk Line) and are now teaming up with the French LD Lines on the shorter Calais route.
The new service will be operated by two French-flagged vessels, including LD Line’s Norman Spirit (pictured).
A second ferry will be added to the Dover Strait as soon as a suitable vessel becomes available, DFDS said in a statement.
“As we have also previously announced, we will hire 300 staff at sea and ashore in addition to those we already employ,” said DFDS. “The process of hiring people, many of these being former SeaFrance staff, has already started.”
DFDS are confident that the new joint-venture will not affect its existing service in any way.
Eurotunnel, the operators of the Channel Tunnel, have also announced plans to introduce a seaborne cross-channel service, with the acquisition of three, now out of service, SeaFrance vessels.
The former SeaFrance ships are large and comfortable, but their decor and furnishings had been allowed to become rather scruffy and neglected by SeaFrance , which had long been known for its poor standard of customer service and abysmal standards of essential navigation and safety equipment maintenance.
Eurotunnel hope to establish themselves as the majority partner in the venture that would revitalize the Calais-Dover route by employing a number of former SeaFrance employees. For their customer’s sake, let’s hope they don’t bring the old SeaFrance culture with them.
More competition on the route should ensure keener prices, so we hope our Sandboys holiday customers will benefit from savings and a better service.
A Happy New Year to all readers of this blog! Here’s what happened on New Years Day at Le Touquet-Paris Plage.
2012 : bain du centenaire au Touquet par France3Nord-Pas-de-Calais
It’s been a quiet time for us this last week before Christmas. Since we only buy presents for family who live in Guernsey or the UK, nearly all our Christmas shopping is done online several weeks in advance. This year we sent gifts from the Loch Fyne, Bucktrout’s and Rock the Boat online shops. We also bought some craft items at the Montreuil Christmas Craft Fair a couple of weeks ago.
Tomorrow, Christmas Day, we’re celebrating with a Christmas dinner at La Verrière in Berck, where we’re sure of excellent food and friendly service in comfortable surroundings.
After Christmas we look forward to the arrival of Mr and Mrs Macpherson at our Garden Studio apartment on Tuesday, and the Robson family at Sandboys Pearl on Friday.
Happy Christmas and Cheers!
L’EGLISE CATHOLIQUE
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH
Christmas Carol Service
Concert de Noël
en français et en anglais
Samedi, 17 décembre 2011
à 16.00 h
à l’église d’Estréelles
Vous êtes tous invités
16.30 h dans la Salle Communale d’Estréelles
Mince Pies … Mulled Wine … Petit Marché de Noël
My favourite bakery is in Fort Mahon which is just a 10 minute drive from our home in Conchil. The bread is so delicious, easily the best in Picardy so it’s well worth the effort of turning out on a lazy Sunday morning. This I did last weekend and not only was I rewarded with a delicious sandwich at lunchtime but I was impressed with the lively atmosphere that greeted me.
Dune was our first holiday cottage in Fort Mahon and it seems only yesterday that we greeted our first guests there, but that was in spring of 2004, amazingly almost 9 years ago. During the 8 intervening seasons this attractive seaside resort has changed quite a lot and seems to have evolved into an all-year-round destination.
During the season it’s very much a family resort, mainly because of the abundance of reasonably priced restaurants that serve good French food and the glorious beach which seems to stretch for miles. Now in late autumn the weekends are populated by smart folk promenading, buying their patisserie and browsing the eye-catching boutiques and gift shops before stopping for a morning refresher in one of the many cafes.
The main road through the town runs right up to the beach where one of my favourite restaurants overlooks the sea. I wanted to know if they were doing a special menu for Christmas Day so I parked the car, made my enquiries and then took a walk up to the boulangerie. I passed quite a few interesting shops and felt at home in the throng of happy smiling people enjoying their constitutional.
I bought my bread for the week (not only is it delicious but it also freezes well), a couple of tarts that shouted “buy me” and set off back to the car. I had only gone a few yards when I noticed a fabulous handbag in the window of a shop called Savannah. My conscience was telling me that I really did not need yet another bag but none the less I crossed the threshold knowing that any good intentions of not splashing out were soon to be thwarted.
I spent an interesting half an hour perusing the impressive collection of casual clothes and honestly I tried to avoid the bag but my girly side got the better of me and I succumbed. Do you want to know the good news though - It only cost 25 Euros so no real harm done.
Yesterday’s tide at Fort Mahon was a big one. The tidal range – vertical height difference between Low Water and High Water – was 9.97 metres (32 ft).
To put this in perspective, imagine yourself standing in the garden of a two storey house, with a pitched roof, that someone has foolishly built exactly on the low tide mark. At low tide the ground under your feet would be just damp.
Six hours later, at high tide, the house will have disappeared from view and you will be floating so high above it you won’t be able to touch its highest point with your feet.
Fortunately tides are easily predictable and the range rarely varies from forecast heights. Fort Mahon takes advantage of these large ranges by making use of the vast expanse of fine sand that they expose for recreation.
Of course I’m very happy living in France but there are a few things that I miss and one of them used to be “going to the pictures”. I say used to, because for sometime now we have enjoyed the use of an almost private cinema.
Montreuil is a very pleasant small town just about 15 minutes away, parking is reasonably easy and there are many interesting shops, good restaurants and for the more energetic, bracing walks around the battlements. All good stuff but the main attraction for me is the small and attractive theatre which is situated in the main square.
Sometime last year Patrick noticed that an outfit called “Cinema Montreuil” was advertising showings of the latest films in VO or “version originale” which means exactly what you might think,the English soundtrack is unchanged but French sub-titles are added.
We found this extremely exciting and when the next showing date arrived we decided to give it a go. We set off very early to beat the queues, imagining that every English speaking person in Pas de Calais would be beating a path to the doors of the theatre. It was not however at all like that, the roads were as usual, very quiet and the area around the theatre offered a choice of parking spaces. Thinking we had got the time wrong we entered the building to find the foyer was almost deserted. Undeterred we eagerly paid our 11 Euros for 2 tickets and moved on into an extremely comfortable auditorium fitted out with plush and generously upholstered seats. We were about 8 people in all and quite honestly I expected the show to be cancelled through lack of patrons but the show went on and we all enjoyed the promised recently released film in perfect comfort.
This was the first of our many trips to the cinema in France. We have got to know the extremely pleasant Frenchman who runs the place quite well, he takes the ticket money, works the projector and even chooses the films. He does his best but he has his moments, we have experienced false starts the wrong film and one time the picture began to disappear off the screen. Of course as soon as we located him he sprang into action and put the matter right.
The audience is never huge mostly numbering in single figures and last night, not for the fist time we had the place to ourselves. With so few customers I just do not know how this enterprise works, there is obviously no big profit but just the same our one man band is always jolly and enthusiastic having a little chat with us as we are on our way out.
This for me sums up the charm of France. Personal gain is not always top of the list, service to members of the community takes precedence and probably the local council chips in to keep it going.
I for one am very grateful for this and once again find myself thanking my lucky stars for allowing me to live in such an enigmatic but pleasant land.
If you’re staying at one of the Sandboys gites in September, you will have the benefit of all the summertime facilities of the seaside town of Fort Mahon, but with far fewer people about. The weather is often just as good as in July or August, too. Of course, after a while, the long wide beaches, rolling dunes, picturesque fishing harbours, bird sanctuaries, nature reserves, wave pools, golf courses, and other sporting and leisure facilities on the coast may begin to pall. That’s when you should consider a day out inland for a change.
Amiens Cathedral - the largest in France
Less than an hour’s drive from Fort Mahon, you’ll find the fine city of Amiens. There’s a magnificent cathedral, of course, the biggest in France, excellent shops, art galleries, museums (including the house where Jules Verne lived and wrote) and hundreds of restaurants and cafes, but the sight-seeing trip we suggest is to “Les Hortillonages”.
These gardens form a patchwork of 300 hectares (1.6 square miles) of vegetable, fruit, and flower gardens in the heart of Amiens. They are interlaced with 40 miles of small canals, known as “rieux” in the Picardy dialect, and you can visit them in special electrically-driven boats modelled on the market gardeners’ own traditional “barques à cornet”.
Taking a September boat trip to see Les Hortillonages
Les Hortillonages, surrounded by the Avre and the Somme rivers, have been cultivated since the Middle Ages. You will find them a peaceful and picturesque place, seemingly far from the modern bustle and noise of the city, yet within sight of the cathedral towers. This idyllic place is the work of generations of men and women who have created their fertile market gardens on land reclaimed from the river marshes. Until the early 20th century, fruit and vegetables from the Hortillonages fed the city of Amiens. Now, this rich land, which can produce up to 3 harvests per year, still supplies a regular Saturday fruit and vegetable market in the city, as well as an annual quayside floating market festival, where the growers in traditional costume sell produce direct from their boats.
Boatloads of produce going to market
You can expect to find radishes, cauliflowers, turnips, lettuce, leeks, artichokes, potatoes, carrots, onions and many other vegetables, as well as blackcurrants, redcurrants and even melons, on sale fresh from the Hortillonnages producers.
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