A couple of weeks ago serendipity brought me to the twin communities of Barneville and Carteret on a wonderful stretch of the French Normandy coast, the Cotentin Peninsula. In a warm strong breeze, and from its wild dunes, Barneville-Carteret looks across to the Channel Island of Jersey.
It is Barneville-Carteret's juxtaposition with the Gulf Stream which gives it its mild winters - typically just seven days of frost each year. In turn this allows Mediterranean plants, exotics and palm trees to flourish here. Gentle dry grasses blow in the pale sand and weathered sticks in the dunes are bleached by the the sun. This does not feel like northern France.
The vast open dunes and beaches of this magical stretch of coast, the pale simple houses, share everything in common with the Channel Islands, and are unlike any other part of Normandy. Quite simply, one of France's most accessible coasts is a world away.
1 Beach, Carteret, watercolour by Monica Alisse 2 and 3 Views from the height of Cap Carteret, by Phil Beard. All images from Flickr under CC BY license.
