Wimereux

We drove through Wimereux en route to the aire in Boulogne and resolved to go back and have a look on foot, suspecting more interesting beach town architecture. Much of what is there is of the right vintage, late 19th, early 20th, but practically no Art Nuvo and only a little Deco. Mostly Flemish. But it was still an interesting morning, me singing "A Wimereux, A Wimereux, A Wimereux, A Wimereux..." as we passed the sights. "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, The lion sleeps tonight..."

The beach front goes on for a kilometer or so; this is the wide
boulevard kind of thing that runs atop the sea wall; note the
cabanas are all in a row in front of the residences, businesses,
etc. The cabanas were of such interest that I'll do a separate
post)

A dog doing what dogs must do; "Dogs dogs dog dog dogs"--
Noam Chomsky

Another entry for my Rubbish Bins of the
World book

Looking north to the two capes

And south toward Boulogne

A low tide pond built onto the beach

One of the few interesting Deco structures

Interestingly, all the houses we saw in Wimereux
were named; this the Sphinx house

Nice Deco resto

One of the more interesting specimens was right
next to where we parked

In one of the best small fishmonger's I have seen

Ditto; yum

In the patisserie down the street, chocolate sardines

Les Deux Caps

The Opal Coast is known for two capes, Cap Blanche-Nez and Cap Gris-Nez, both cliffs overlooking the Channel. The bus/RV parking lot for the white one was almost a mile from the beginning of the trail, so we drove on to the gray one, and, in sweltering, smeltering heat, parked and walked up to the observation deck.

A P&O ferry leaving the port of Boulogne, I think, just down the
coast from here

Cap Blacnhe-Nez, like the White Cliffs of Dover that are just
19 miles away; lots of chalk around here, but they don't do
white horses

Walking past some more German Art Deco

Looking across the Channel

The White Cliffs in the distance

Blanche-Nez from the point of Gray-Nose

Looking down to the shore on Gris-Nez

Northern Europe is in the grip of an historic heat wave, records
set in London and Paris; and we were there

It was barely bearable right on the coast; we landed at the city
aire de camping-cars of Boulogne sur Mer, overlooking the
great old harbor from which Julius Caesar invaded Britland in
55 BC, and from which Napoleon planned to invade, in the
early 1800s; but didn't; more of this shortly...

German Art Deco On The Pas De Calais

One sees quite a bit of 1940s German Art Deco driving along the D940, the Opal Coast road, in the Pas de Calais. They were all built in 1942-1944, mainly by local conscript laborers, but to German specifications and standards. Due to the relatively short architectural epoch, they are all of remarkably similar design and construction materials. The thick walls and slit windows are reminiscent of Romanesque architecture, but the rounded upper walls and roofs are distinctive of the modern era of bombardment. Most of these sites are in poor condition nowadays, although one, the Batterie Todt, near Cape Gris Nez, has been converted into a fine museum of the period. The structures are all rather drab, of course, over-grown with vegetation, most of their furnishings have disappeared, but they are indeed standing the test of time.

Well, leaning the test of time, but 5 stories nigh

Guarded by sheep at Cap Gris Nez

Another good example at Gris Nez...a high cliff, with an impressive
view of the Channel, the possible landing beaches, etc..

Batterie Todt, one of the 7 largest on the Atlantic Wall, as this neighborhood was
once called

Thus; none of the lavish ornamentation of Art Nouveau

But with this prized possession, "Leopold," one of those Guns of Navarone type
monsters that could hurl a 2,000 pound projectile 40 miles; this one is still aimed
at England, the White Cliffs of which you can plainly see from the Cape

And yet another big one, just a few miles down the road; the whole area here
has a commanding, I mean, beautiful view of Boulogne sur Mer and the great
natural harbor there...

Grand Fort Phillipe

We drove on...through some misadventures related to our ailing refrigerator and some others related to the incredible traffic jams we encountered but somehow bypassed...down the coast toward Calais, but turning off at Gravelines and heading out to an aire-de-camping-cars at Grand Fort Phillipe. We spent a pleasant evening there, gratis, walking the canal and learning about the source of all the gridlock around Dunkirk and Calais.

So there it is...in the 17th century the Spanish--this was their
part of the world, via Charles V, the Hapsburgs, et al.--dug a
4 km canal from the Channel to Gravelines, and named the
place after Phillip II, their king; impressive...until one harkens
back to the Grand Canal in China, a millennium before...1100
miles

The big thing here nowadays is the spring Parade of the Giants,
which, damn!, we missed by only a couple months; we'll
certainly be back

Anyhow, here's the canal, from the aire, low-tide

A DFDS ferry glides out of Dunkirk harbor, past the volley-
ball and futbol fields on the humongous (low-tide) beach

The chapel at lands end here...

The canal and jetty go way beyond; we didn't...high wind and
sand are not good for contact-wearers

A container ship glides by

Looking across the canal to the marina and beyond

From our site

Next morning...water in the canal! We're in the land of big tides!

The ferry crossing the canal

A stone circle in Fort Grande Phillipe...Vicki theorizes there
were two circles originally, an outer and an inner; I theorize
there probably are pull-tabs beneath these rocks

The traffic--particularly the A16 around Dunkirk and Calais--
was caused by a ferry workers' strike and associated sympathy
strikes and protests; trucks were parked for miles and miles on
the freeways, waiting for the strike to end; DFDS ferries
continued running out of Dunkirk...they apparently
precipitated the strike by buying out a competitor and letting
it known they would close it down; we read on BBC that the
situation in and around Dover was much, much worse; in
Phillippe and elsewhere we ran into numerous Brits who had
been stranded and who had not been able to make new
reservations

Malo les Bains

At last we are in France, in Dunkirk, just over the border, at the campground Ville de Dunkerque, the city of Dunkirk municipal campground. Very nice, very reasonable, at least for over-nighters like us. We undertook a long walk along the plage, just west, in Malo les Bains, enjoying but not participating in the beach culture, and looking for Art Nuvo structures. The next morning we undertook a walk along the beach, east, toward Belgium. It is one of the broadest cleanest sand beaches I have seen. The weather was ucharacteristically warm, and due to get much warmer.

The landscape around here is planted, of course, but largely
in small container plants, 6 inches or so, some larger

Anyhow, here we are on the plage road/sea-wall, looking toward
Dunkirk harbor

And the other way, toward Belgium

Our chief interest was beach town architecture, chiefly Art Nuvo,
which Vicki had read about; the place is of that vintage...

We found a little, arguably...

Keeping our eyes on the beach, nonetheless; here, the 8-10
beach volleyballs courts; some of these kids were very, very good

The one real knock-out, a block or two off
the plage

This part of the world has suffered much; the
large sculpture, here, entitled 1914-1918...
1939-1945, captures some of it; the site of one
of the Allies' great defeats in WWII, but also
the ashes from which they arose

Occasional nice grill work

Some Nuvo

Sometimes just a door will do

Back on the beach, watching kite surfers

Next morning, crossing the dunes that separate the campground
from the beach; dune are big around here, very big

Looking back toward the harbor

And north toward Belgium, only a mile or two away

Here and there are reminders of the times that make the name
of Dunkirk famous, or infamous

South

North