Northern France’s Côte d’Azur: France Magazine

White sand in toes, wafts of factor 50 in the nostrils, I’m exercising some downright nosiness at a fancy beach bar ‒ pine trees and white linen parasols all that obscure the bluest of skies. A teeny beach towel and a froufrou pooch jostle for space in a Hermès handbag, two raised eyebrows are enough to summon a waiting garçon, and my only dilemma du jour is whether to order a beachfront thalassothérapie or half a dozen oysters and a glass of crisp white at the bar aux huîtres. Aaaah, nothing says heady glamour like the Côte d’Azur, right? Except that I’m not there at all. I’m barely beyond Calais.

I’m in Le-Touquet, in the very pinnacle of France’s hexagon, and that’s because ‒ and I say this tentatively ‒ I think I might be done with the sweaty south in high season. It’s not that the French Riviera doesn’t float my boat – au contraire – it’s just that for me, that boat’s not a yacht on which I am poised with Aperol spritz and a jaunty hat. Instead, there’s me performing a peculiar dance, lurching off the scalding sand towards the nearest available fridge to stick my head in, the lyrics le-monde-entier-est-un-cactus ringing in my (sunburnt) ears.

In truth of course, current summer temperatures and associated weather events such as wildfires are no laughing matter, and as if we haven’t seen enough planetary peril of late, temperatures are RISING. OK, I’m no meteorologist, but even I can work out what Nice might feel like in 2050 if temperatures continue to creep up as they’ve done in the last 25 years – and they’re projected to do just that. Fake news? Well, when you hear farmers from northern France on French TV discussing their growing season swelling by two months, and a new business model incorporating sunflower production, I’ll let you be the judge.

Pas de Calais Tourisme / Frederik Astier

And so, without wishing to put any Gallic noses out of joint, I’d personally hazard a guess that we could be seeing big south-to north-shifts in tourism in decades to come, which, if you’re comparing Cannes and Le-Touquet round trips, means 1,400 less carbon-footprint miles from Calais, and all that’s self-righteous about flight dodging. Agreed, you might have to squint a bit to conjure a true Côte d’Azur but, as I’m discovering, getting a taste of the south in the far north isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds, luxury doesn’t have to mean wasteful, and amongst millennials in particular, there are changing perceptions of the north afoot. Maybe time to grind to a halt in that bit of France we habitually motor on through? The north is cool, man. In more ways than one.

Get the glamour: Le-Touquet

If I describe Le-Touquet to someone unfamiliar with France, and I throw in that it’s effectively a piddly 69 miles from Dover, it’s often met with the same expression as one imagines John Whitley had ‒ the pioneering businessman largely credited with this coastline’s transformation into a glamorous resort ‒ back in 1894, when he first clapped eyes on the place. If his hands hadn’t been occupied by binoculars that day, frantically focussing on the white sand, the illuminating Canche estuary, the pine forest and a Channel narrow enough to allow quick Brit flits, he’d have been rubbing them together at the thought of the Franco-British smart set who, in the coming decades, would swarm to its casinos, luxury hotels, golf courses and boulevards of turreted Anglo-Norman villas. See the who’s who for yourself on the never-ending wall of fame at the Westminster Hotel – all red brick, roaring 20s and swank ‒ from Wodehouse, Coward and Fleming to Piaf, Dietrich and Gainsbourg.

Fast forward a few decades, and it’s clear that Le-Touquet wholly upholds its reputation as a chichi, see-and-be-seen type of place. The beach, I’m told, has been in TripAdvisor’s Top- 10-in-France three times in the last five years, probably on account of what one can get up to: horseriding, kids’ clubs, kitesurfing, summer bars, longe-côte, paddleboarding, cycling the dunes and forest, et al. Around and about, I’m also finding galleries, a casino, a snoop at Macron’s résidence secondaire plus racecourse, golf club and lido ‒ and it’s turning out to be a good spot for licking windows too (fear not, to lèche a vitrine in France is to go window shopping) with many a designer label and smart foodie store gracing the streets around Rues St-Jean, St-Louis and de-Metz. And there was me wondering why Le-Touquet’s also known as Paris-Plage...

Getting there

Travel with eurotunnel.com from Folkestone to Calais or with poferries.com/dfds.com for ferries from Dover to Calais. Le-Touquet is an onward car journey of 50 minutes, via the A16 motorway.

Where to stay:

Hôtel Barrière Le Westminster, Le-Touquet-Paris-Plage

Tel. 00 800 5400 5400

hotelsbarriere.com

Indulge in the ultimate Art Deco address, complete with spa, indoor pool, wood-panelled bar and Michelin-starred restaurant Le Pavillon. Rooms start at €179 per night.

Where to eat:

La Base Nord, Le-Touquet-Paris-Plage

Tel. 0033 (0)3 21 05 59 22

labasenord.com

Slightly off the beaten track, with amazing views of the Canche estuary from the terrace, try fruits de mer and a good deal of boeuf, in a cosy and contemporary woody décor.

Get le village perché: Montreuil-sur-Mer

If Trade Descriptions were to pitch up at Montreuil-SUR-MER in northern France, they’d have a right field day, accusing Monsieur le Maire of porkies, given that there’s clearly not a splash of sea to be seen, on account of the estuary having slowly silted up over many centuries.

But ‒ as one sheepishly places one’s bucket and spade back in the boot ‒ one notices that what Montreuil lacks in ocean, it more than makes up for in medieval, this village perché certainly northern France’s answer to a Provençal Bonnieux, Gordes or Roussillon. Ironwork lanterns light up carriage size doorways in tall red-brick hôtels particuliers, it’s the kind of place I half expect to unwittingly wander onto a Madame Bovary filmset, and I’m not the first to be smitten: Not so long ago, the walled town was voted runner up in the France 2 TV show Village-Préféré-des-français.

And whilst I’d agree that a French town or village is far from unique if it screams “Food!” at you, this place certainly has built its name on gastronomy, with an ecosystem of suppliers, from the humble boulanger (get a Jean Valjean loaf: this is Les Misérables country…) to the Michelin-starred chef, all cohesively operating an island of super-low food mileage.

Med-like convivial outdoor eating was A Thing here long before restaurants were forced to carry their tables outside for social-distancing ‒ and I’m encouraged to try the successful ‘Pique-Nique-Chic’ initiative where Montreuil restaurant menus tempt locals, workday lunch-breakers and visitors to pick up a three-course ready-to-eat lunch to tuck in to at a spontaneous spot like the ramparts. (Does that knock a Tesco meal deal out of the park ‒ or what?). Alternatively, there’s another foodie experience: ‘Diner Insolite’ involving e-biking from Le-Touquet to an alfresco restaurant feast in Montreuil. I can’t say I’m surprised that this is a winner: They can’t make e-bikes fast enough in France at the moment, possibly something to do with the development of the Vélo-Maritime coastal bike network (France’s new Santiago-de-Compostela?) but definitely down to locals’ perspectives on post-Covid, eco-conscious living. Cycling and eating in tandem (pun intended) is the future, and if it’s sans lycra, I’m in.

Getting there:

Travel with eurotunnel.com from Folkestone to Calais or with poferries.com/dfds.com for ferries from Dover to Calais. Montreuil-sur-Mer is an onward car journey of 50 minutes, via the A16 motorway.