Visiting the Opal Coast in a week

The Dunkirk 1940 museum

The week starts with the story that made Dunkirk famous worldwide: the evacuation of 340,000 soldiers in May 1940, told in the very casemates from which it was directed. Allow ninety minutes; it's short, dense, and it sheds light on everything you see on the beaches afterwards.

See everything in Dunkirk →

The belfry and the town centre

The Saint-Éloi belfry, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, can be climbed: 65 metres up, with views over the port, the beach and, on a clear day, the Belgian coast. Lunch afterwards on Place Jean-Bart or along the Malo seafront, where the brasseries serve lunch all year round.

Malo-les-Bains beach

Three kilometres of sand and a seafront lined with Belle Époque villas: this is Dunkirk's beach, one of the widest on the coast. At low tide, you walk a long way before the water reaches your ankles — which is what makes it a sand-yachting spot.

The kursaal and casino hold the middle of the seafront; the eastern end, towards Leffrinckoucke, is quieter.

The dunes of Bray-Dunes

The last town before Belgium, and the finest dune in the area: the Dune Marchand nature reserve, eighty-three protected hectares, can be explored on marked trails in an hour. Late in the day, the light comes off the sea and flattens the marram grass.

See everything in Bray-Dunes →

Dinner and overnight stay in Dunkirk

First night in Dunkirk, or in Malo to be right on the seafront when you wake up. The town's page has our recommended addresses.

A walk around the Gravelines ramparts

Twenty minutes from Dunkirk, a star-shaped town designed by Vauban, ringed by water-filled moats. The full circuit of the fortifications takes an hour on foot, or you can take an electric boat along the moats instead. The black-and-white spiral lighthouse at Petit-Fort-Philippe is a five-minute drive away.

See everything in Gravelines →

Lunch in Calais

Calais is the biggest town in the department, and the one everyone drives through without stopping: that's a mistake. Lunch on Place d'Armes, at the foot of the Tour du Guet, then a ten-minute walk to the town hall and its UNESCO-listed belfry. Rodin's Burghers of Calais stand out front.

See everything in Calais →

The Cité de la Dentelle et de la Mode

In a former lace factory, ten-tonne Leavers looms still turn right in front of you. Two hours, and one of the most surprising visits on the coast — even for those not initially drawn to lace.

The seafront and the Dragon

The seafront has been completely redone: a new sea wall, the region's biggest skatepark, and the Dragon, a twelve-metre machine that carries its passengers along the seafront. It doesn't come out every day — check the calendar before counting on it. Otherwise, the beach is more than enough: it's huge, and the white beach huts are there all year round.

Dinner and overnight stay in Calais

Overnight in Calais, or already in Wissant if you'd rather wake up facing the capes tomorrow morning. Both are twenty minutes away.

Cap Blanc-Nez

A hundred and thirty-four metres of chalk facing England, visible on a clear day. Park at the cape's car park and take the clifftop path; the full loop is 6.4 kilometres and passes through the village of Escalles. At low tide, the beach below can be walked — check the time before heading down.

See everything in Wissant →

Lunch in Wissant

"Wissant" is pronounced "Ouissant", and it's the village between the two capes: a bay, a seafront, a square. Our restaurant picks are on the village page; for a picnic, the seafront facing the bay does the job nicely.

Cap Gris-Nez

The closest point in France to England: 28 kilometres. Lower than Blanc-Nez, wilder, with the lighthouse and the CROSS coastguard station watching over the busiest strait in the world. A 3.4-kilometre loop takes you round, accessible by wheelchair on the upper section.

Between the two capes, the Cran aux Œufs is a cut in the cliff that almost nobody knows about: a cove, a staircase, and hardly anyone around.

See everything in Audinghen →

The Batterie Todt and Audresselles

The Atlantic Wall museum occupies a bunker of the Batterie Todt, whose gun once fired on England. An hour, and you understand what all those concrete blocks you come across on the beaches actually are.

Then Audresselles, the fishing village with its flobarts, the flat-bottomed boats hauled up onto the shingle. End the day on the seafront, facing the sunset.

Dinner and overnight stay in Wissant

Two nights in Wissant: it's the base for the capes, and tomorrow you won't be going far.

The Ambleteuse fort, at low tide

A Vauban fort perched on the rocks, at the mouth of the Slack. It can only be reached at low tide: the rest of the time it stands in the water and is best viewed from the beach. Check last night's tide times, and plan the morning around them.

Before you leave, five minutes on the Slack beach, the wild bay between Ambleteuse and Wimereux, where the birds settle in spring.

See everything in Ambleteuse →

Lunch in Wimereux

Wimereux is the most elegant resort on the northern coast, and the one where the food on the seafront is best. Our recommendations are on the town's page.

See everything in Wimereux →

The seafront and the villas

Fifteen hundred metres of seafront lined with white and blue beach huts, then the streets behind: the Belle Époque villas, built by industrialists from the North, each carry a QR code telling their story. An hour, on foot, no guide needed.

Nausicaá

Europe's biggest aquarium, ten minutes from Wimereux. The big tank and its 18-metre tunnel, the penguins, the sea lions: allow three hours, arriving mid-afternoon once the school groups have left. Book online: in season, the queue at the entrance can run to tens of minutes.

See everything in Boulogne sur Mer →

Dinner and overnight stay in Boulogne-sur-Mer

For fish, this is the place: France's number one fishing port. Overnight in Boulogne, in the upper town if you can.

The fortified town of Boulogne

The circuit of the ramparts is a kilometre and a half and takes forty minutes on foot, with the lower town and the port at your feet. Inside: the Notre-Dame basilica and its crypt, the biggest in France, rediscovered in 1828; the old town square and its terraces; the belfry.

Lunch at the harbour

Quai Gambetta, opposite the trawlers. On Saturday mornings, the fishermen sell straight off the quay; it's the best spot on the coast for a quick smoked herring.

Le Portel and the Fort de l'Heurt

Right next to Boulogne, Le Portel has three forts and a sheltered fine-sand beach. The Fort de l'Heurt, a Napoleonic fort, sits on a rock that the sea cuts off at every high tide: at low tide you can walk right up to its foot.

Further south, Équihen-Plage and its "quilles en l'air", old upturned boat hulls turned into houses.

See everything in Le Portel →

Hardelot Castle

A neo-Tudor manor among the pines, an English garden and France's only Elizabethan theatre. The park is free; the castle takes an hour to visit. Afterwards, Hardelot beach is three minutes away, with its dunes and the Mont Saint-Frieux to the south.

See everything in Hardelot-Plage →

Dinner and overnight stay in Hardelot or Le Touquet

Hardelot for the calm, Le Touquet for the evening buzz: both are twenty minutes away. The last two nights are spent in the south.

The covered market and the town centre

Le Touquet's covered market, under its 1932 archway, is held on Thursday and Saturday mornings, daily in summer. Around it, the Rue Saint-Jean and its shops, the Anglo-Norman façades, and the best morning coffee on a terrace.

See everything in Le Touquet →

The forest and the beach

Eight hundred hectares of pines planted in the 19th century, crossed by cycle paths and hidden villas: the forest is best explored by bike, hired in the centre. Then the beach, one of the widest on the coast, where you can walk a kilometre out at low tide.

Lunch in Étaples, by the harbour

On the other side of the bridge, Étaples is the Canche's fishing port, and the town with the two festivals that matter: the Coquille Saint-Jacques in spring, the Hareng Roi in November. The restaurants on the quay serve what came in that morning.

The Canche estuary

The Canche estuary nature reserve can be explored on foot from the Le Touquet headland, or by boat from Étaples to see the seals up close. On the rising tide, the bay fills up in under an hour: that's the moment to be there.

Dinner and overnight stay in Le Touquet

Last night in Le Touquet. The resort stays lively late into the evening, even out of season at weekends.

The seals of the Authie estuary

Two colonies of seals, harbour seals and grey seals, visible all year round at low tide from the sand of the Authie estuary, south of Berck. Stay three hundred metres away: they're resting, and a disturbed seal will abandon its pup. Binoculars make all the difference.

See everything in Berck-sur-Mer →

The Berck seafront and the little train

Berck has the longest seafront on the coast, a twelve-kilometre beach, and the kite festival in April that draws half a million visitors. The rest of the year, the little train runs along the seafront in thirty minutes; the lighthouse can be visited at weekends.

Lunch and the end of the trip in Montreuil-sur-Mer

Twenty minutes inland, Montreuil-sur-Mer hasn't had the sea for centuries: the Canche silted up. What remains is a whole walled town, its ramparts walked in an hour, its citadel, and the Rue du Clape-en-Bas with its low houses. Lunch here is better than in most resorts, and it's on the way back towards Paris or Lille.

See everything in Montreuil-sur-Mer →

The Audomarois marshes by bacôve

Forty minutes from the coast, a 3,700-hectare marsh farmed since the Middle Ages, explored by bacôve, the market gardeners' flat-bottomed boat. An hour on the water, sheltered under the awnings if it rains, between cauliflower plots and houses reachable only by water.

See everything in Saint-Omer →

Lunch in Saint-Omer

The cathedral, Place du Maréchal-Foch and its terraces under the arcades, the public garden. Saint-Omer is the inland art town, and the one that rescues a rainy day.

La Coupole

Ten minutes away, the Coupole d'Helfaut: a 55,000-tonne concrete dome built to launch V2 rockets at London, now a history centre and planetarium. Two hours, indoors, and one of the most memorable visits in the region.