I literally had no idea that the Northern coastlines of France would have such a vibrant colour in there. They call it the Opalcoast for a reason, and that is surely because of the colour of the water. It is so vibrant at times that even the Caribbean or the Med would envy what is going on over there.
And with these views towards the sea, a lovely place for a hike to check out even some more views.
Near the town of Wissant there are two great hiking spots to walk over the cliffs. One of the cliffs called 'Cap Blanc Nez' I wrote about already a bit in this post, and just a couple miles more to the West you can find this other cliff point called 'Cap Griz-Nez'.
From this point on you have crazy views all the way looking towards England (or should I call it Great Brittain, I am not sure what is appropriate at this moment) and you can see the white cliffs of Dover super closeby. It looks to me that if I would have a sail boat I could sail over in just a couple or hours.
But the waves are bigger than you think on the water, and there is also a lot of industrial traffic on the water, so that is not something to underestimate.
Walking routes
This area is touristy and I was surprised by the large amount of people walking over here. On the other hand, the weather was beautiful so it was totally understandable that everyone wanted to head outside and go for a hike.
Cap Griz-Nez is very much ready for handling a lot of people dropping by, so I guess this is not something to visit in high season. There are a decent amount of parking spaces for all kinds of vehicles and a lot of the walking routes are making on wooden boardwalks to head towards the viewing point.
Admittingly...I was one of the younger persons walking here, the other population had a lot of salt and pepper coloured hair if you know what I mean ;)
There is a lot of history in this coastal lines, and these lands have been fought over in all kinds of wars for as long as people can remember. Surely the first thought is about world war2 when you think about the Normandic invasion. But seeing how close this cliff is to England, you can also understand there was a lot of fighting from coastline to coastline over these waters.
On the cliffs were also a lot of old fortifications where you could still see how the land used to be defended. Along the boardwalk there were a lot of signs with information on how this all went back in the days.
Some of them had beautiful landscape shots on there, others had stories about how 'the enemy' would sneak in.
Heading down to the beach
There was also a walking route towards the sea with some steep stairs. I guess they would be easy accessable if you wouldn't have a dog with you who is very eager to run into the sea.
There is also a larger hike around and you can also even drive around to get to the sea again. The beach was full of surprises to me.
See, this area is really prone to the change of the tides because the North sea channel is so narrow here. This becomes of influence on how much water is pushed through. That means that high tide and low tide depending on the moon can chance significantly.
When the ewater hits low tide and pulls back creating hundres of meters of additional beach, that is when you can see what if underneith there. I had no idea that stones covered with sea grass would look like this.
It does explain the Opal colour in the water right?
And with those stones and grass there were also all kinds of little pools with small fishes and crabs inside but also all kinds of shell which seemed eadible as well. I saw people walking on the beach on the hunt for their food, but also peple walking on the beach with metal detectors to see what had washed up on shore.
And even...a small boat that had beached in the low tide that was being pulled up by a tractor to get it out of the water again. There was a lot going on on this beach for sure! Not your traditional sunbathing though!
For me everything in this region was new and a big surprise. I would recommend this any day for the people who love a bit of a tranquility off season in combination with some nature and history as well.
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Hiya, @ybanezkim26 here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made it into our Honorable Mentions in Travel Digest #2359.
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