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Waking up on a sunny morning in Northern France means a new adventure is coming. Today, I decided to visit the “remote” village of Wissant located on the Opal Coast, sandwiched between the Cap Blanc-Nez and Cap Gris-Nez landmarks. This blog post shows the spectacular places that I have seen.
Here’s a short video clip to get you excited.
How to get to Wissant?
For almost two years, I have always wanted to visit this village after my French teacher at Alliance Française de Lille told our class that Wissant is a cute, little fishermen’s village worthy of a visit.
My problem was that I neither had a car nor I drive, and public transport to this place is non-existent… until I discovered a way to visit Cap Blanc-Nez by public transport.
Wissant sits on the same coast just a “further walk down” this famous landmark, I thought. In reality, it felt quite far. 😂
For this trip, I literally followed how I visited Cap Blanc-Nez the last time: I took a high-speed TGV train to Calais-Frethun, then hopped on free bus trips from Frethun to Calais-Ville (main train station in Calais), and from the bus terminal at Calais-Ville to the commune of Sangatte.
I decided to alight at the bus stop near Sangatte’s mairie (town hall) as I knew there was a clean, automated public toilet there. I needed to unload as there was no way I would want to have a toilet emergency on the trail.
That said, my idea today to reach and visit Wissant for the first time is to hike from Sangatte.
Hiking to Wissant
After a brief toilet break, I started my hike on Sangatte’s boardwalk. This was such a lovely day with blue skies and a calm sea breeze.
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From Sangatte’s beach, the United Kingdom’s famous White Cliffs of Dover in Kent region were visible on the horizon. It was such a fantastic sight.
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Shortly, I found myself treading on the green trail towards the Cap Blanc-Nez hill. I was fascinated with the fact that I was enjoying the trail alone, although, at times, I did bump into other hikers.
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As I have already been on this trail before, I hiked very efficiently making only a few stops to enjoy the views, and reached Cap Blanc-Nez in less than an hour.
From Cap Blanc-Nez, however, the trail toward Wissant was new to me. I felt more excited when I realized this.
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Further down Cap Blanc-Nez, I climbed and descended at least three hills. I also saw some old bunkers from the last world war.
One of these hill’s slopes also had a cattle farm. Here, I paused for a bit to enjoy the sights of free-range cows feeding themselves on the gentle slopes.
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Eventually, the trail led to a stairway exiting directly to a beach section called the Plage de Strouanne. This forced me to hike on the beach for a couple of metres before the trail went back inland, into a paved road.
So, I walked down this road which was frequented by fast cars and trucks. This felt less safe as some parts of the road did not have a sidewalk/pavement, which made me ask myself if I took the wrong trail. Eventually, I saw a sign which said “Wissant” which confirmed that I was not lost
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After walking about a kilometre more, I finally entered the village of Wissant and saw many nice houses. The town was very quiet and the roads were mostly empty.
Here are the interesting sights I saw in Wissant, a fishermen’s village in Northern France:
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After a small walk through the town centre, I had lunch at a local restaurant/cafe on the seaside wall and felt amazed that I finally reached this village at 2 and 1/2 hours of hiking.
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Returning from Wissant to Sangatte on Foot
After enjoying a piece of natural gauffre, a cup of coffee, and a bowl of ice cream (which I deserved), I started my walk back to Sangatte. Instead of taking the roadside this time, I decided to do my hiking on the beach as much of it was still exposed. However, when I left Wissant, the sea was already in the process of turning into a high tide. The weather also improved: at this time, the sky was cerulean blue and absolutely spotless.
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Hiking on the beach proved faster and easier on the knees. My intention was to completely walk the beach all the way to Cap Blanc-Nez where I will ascend back to the trail.
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While hiking further back towards the direction of Cap Blanc-Nez, I noticed the tide has already risen and a huge part of the beach was already underwater.
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When I reached the narrow beach segment located just below the “Little Blanc-Nez” cliffs, I saw that the beach was already completely underwater there, which meant the only way to move forward is to walk in the water, through the rocks. So, I removed my socks, carried my shoes, and waded on the seawater while the waves hit on me.
After doing this for a few minutes and I got past a blind curve of the white cliffs, I realized that the cliffs continued to be very high and still stretched far.
The only option I had was to walk over the rocks below the cliffs. Although I could do this, I felt unsafe as I kept thinking that the seawater could rise more quickly before I could reach the “exit” of the cliffs.
The possibility of getting stuck on the rocks got real, so I made a quick decision to make a U-turn and return to the Plage of Strouanne where I could exit the beach and return to the trail. This caused me to walk back for at least 2 kilometres and I essentially lost whatever time I would have saved by hiking on the beach… but at least I was safe!
Despite the ordeal on the beach, I felt relieved by the lovely sight of the trails. At this time, my issue was how to hike as fast as possible back to Sangatte to arrive on time to catch my bus to Calais, and then my train back to Lille.
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As such, I concentrated on hiking and hiked faster. At times, I even jogged to move faster.
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After approximately 6 hours of active hiking, I finally returned to the village of Sangatte. I had a cafe gourmand at a restaurant before I headed back to Calais-Ville to catch my TER train back to Lille.
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Overall, I was very happy with what transpired on this day, even though I was completely exhausted. I finally visited Wissant and saw more of the Opal Coast.
I will definitely return when I want to do another hike by the sea.
Have you been to Wissant? Let me know in the comments below.
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