Le Touquet…Paris by the sea

Le Touquet is quite a distance from Paris even though it is called Paris by the sea. If you arrived in Paris expecting it to be close by for a paddle in the sea you’d be disappointed.

Le Touquet is an unusual French seaside resort with large thatched roofed villas in wide boulevards amongst the pine trees. It was a very fashionable resort in the 20s and 30s and many famous people have stayed here…Sean Connery was apparently staying at one of the glitzy hotels here when he was offered the role of James Bond.

It’s a very glamorous resort for the rich and famous and full of expensive shops and restaurants so we of course fit right in! Sadly, I don’t think our budget agrees.

What Le Touquet also has is an international airport with a Eurocar hire which is why we have come. We can hire a car here which will enable us to travel onwards to Brittany and to family…about 650km away.

The little car we have at the moment from the Carrefour supermarket has been great and really cheap but you can only drive 100Km a day maximum and it has to be returned to the same supermarket.

So our plan today was to drive the car up to Le Touquet and hire the new car which I would then drive back following my husband. I don’t usually drive abroad so this was stepping out my comfort zone.

I was a bit concerned about driving into the airport and parking etc. whilst we sorted the car hire but this international airport was the smallest airport I have ever visited. It is just used by small Cessna type planes bringing in the visitors…the taxi service from Paris.

It is also used by planes flying in from Biggin Hill airport near London for weekend visitors from the UK. It was very tempting to get on one of these little planes and fly home but that would not be possible with the dog.

The airport itself was fascinating and had a display of old photos from the airport’s history which I loved.