Driving from Nieuwpoort to Caen: Dunkirk and Honfleur

Posted by Anura Samara, 17 September 2014

Although this was meant to be a day of driving only, we stopped off at a couple of places along the way.

Dunkirk

I wanted to stop off and see Dunkirk. I read a book about the BEF in France in the early days of World War Two, and their evacuation from the beaches of Dunkirk. In some ways, the story of Dunkirk for the British parallels the Australian story of Gallipoli – stoic in the face of superior forces, fighting retreat, return to fight again.

So we drove through what is pretty much like any other large French city and found our way to the beach. Despite the fog or mist, we could see that the beach was long and shallow, perfect both for evacuating men from shallow-draught vessels but also lacking in little cover from air attack whilst waiting to be evacuated. Standing on that beach, it was hard to believe that more than a third of a million men were evacuated from there in just 9 days.

There’s a nice monument to Operation Dynamo at one end of the beach.

Honfleur

Honfleur turned out to be a real find. We’d been told about this place by Juliane’s sister, so we made a slight detour as we approached Caen.

And what a find it turned out to be! It’s a small French seaside village, but the old part has been spared by a detour of traffic around it. As a result, the area around the small port retains the feel of an ancient village. There are some old buildings in this area, the narrow back streets that we just love and the whole central area around the port is lined with cafes and restaurants. We made our way on foot up the hill behind the village to get a better view – all around is more industrial ports and the Normandie Bridge also stands out, so Honfleur feels like a tiny time capsule trapped inside a modern country.

It really is beautiful, and although we stayed until after dark we were really kicking ourselves for not planning to have more time there. Next time!

Categories: France