The Northern Coast

Knee length coat hands in my pockets taking one step at a time in a battle with the the wind, the sounds of seagulls low horns of passing tankers and cold water crashing against the shore.  I have a giddy smile on my face as others are pulling up their hoods, I face into the wind thinking "I'm going back to my roots. I look up to see a green light at the end of a long pier and I'm transported side by side with The Great Gatsby, I love being near the coast.  

Wednesday I had the chance to go with some friends from Saint Amand on a little road trip.  We drove to the north-west stopping in Casel, Bergues, Dunkerque, and Calais.  Basically a little tromp through the western side of Flanders.  First stop was Casel high up on the top of a hill (I learned in French its not 'hilly' but 'valley-ness') a traditional Flemish town complete with a Flemish radio station, cobbled streets, windmills, and cute painted cottage farms.  From the top of the hill you can see out over the whole region to dunkerque and beyond.  

Bergues is the town where 'Bienvenue chez les Chit'is was filmed', it's a very typic but beautiful northern town, it receives lots of French tourists seeking to pay homage to the film, so many in fact that the belfry (the tower with all the bells) had to have its structure reinforced.   We saw the famous movie scene locations and had the chance to visit the belfry when the 'carillonneur' just so happened to be there to play for an hour, 193 steps later we were on top of the town watching over it while the bells played like a soundtrack.  

Dunkerque me mate'ez eih wha ta place.  Cool town alert, this is the town in the very top top of France, if you walk on the beach for a bit you end up in Belgium.  It is a port town with the local folk hero being Jean Bart the pirate.  It's still very much an industrial town but it has a university, clean beach, restaurants, and you can see so many old guys dressed up like captains walking around complete with beard/white pants/navy blue jacket/cap and hands in the pockets.  We stopped here to have some real 'moules frites' (mussels and fries-regional specialty) and I found out real moules frites are called 'moules marinères' I kicked those back with a nice cold anosteké beer (dunkerque for au revoir) and my fries.  Num num but man that was a lot of mussels, whew it was a challenge.  

After a scrumptious meal we headed off to quickly see Calais to see what it was really like; around here it has become so infamous for the immigrantion crisis happening in Europe right now, people are being run over by semis trying to jump aboard and there are camps outside the town which are referred to as 'the jungle'.  Well it's just like that, a sad town if I might say so, fences with barbed wire lining the highways all the way up to the port.  It was only us and hapless groups of wandering immigrants followed closely by the riot police on the streets.  It's a gray cold wet bucket of misery at the moment.  -the anti-tour guide-  We walked out to the end of a long pier alongside a wind swept sand beach beside the industrial port.  I chatted it up with some grizzled fishermen, watched the ferries come in and saw the faintest outline of the coast of England.  By the way the cliffs of Dover are just across from the French cliffs called 'cap Gris nez' 'cap blanc nez' it was too cold and windy to go this trip but we're hoping to do a picnic day and go out to see them this spring.