Our journey from Calais to St-Valery-sur-Somme couldn’t have had a more auspicious beginning, although with the benefit of hindsight, Valery turned out to be very fishy indeed.
Nearly twenty years ago, before we had a property in France, we visited often: weekends, school holidays and the odd scrambled mid-term week kept our levels of French addiction topped up. For shorter breaks, we favoured a stretch of coastline from Le Crotoy to St-Valery-sur-Somme in the Baie de Somme. Flat, extensive views, great bird life, cheap hotels and great markets kept us coming back for a few years in a row.
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This time, and I can’t remember the exact date, but probably around 2007, we left at our usual 04:30 am to maximise our time on French soil, caught the Channel Tunnel train on time and set off towards St-Valery-sur-Somme. We always stopped at the Baie de Somme services on the A16 for coffee and the opportunity to sit outside on the walkway at the back that overlooks the bay to do a bit of bird watching.
On this occasion, we had our coffee, left the services and headed off towards St Valery. We now have a SANEF radio tag that opens the tolls automatically, but in those days, we popped a card in the slot, got a ticket and paid at the other end. This is where the trouble started; as we reached the next set of tolls, we realised that Charlotte, my wife, had left her swanky new Black leather backpack handbag thing at the services. We raced back, and someone had kindly handed it in at the restaurant. The point of this little anecdote is that since then, the A16 between Le Touquet and Abbeville has been known as ‘le route de sac noir’.
The suburbs of St-Valery-sur-Somme are a little like Venice but on a much, much smaller scale: coughing factories and lotissement litter the outskirts of this very attractive mediaeval town, but once you’ve conquered the endless roundabouts and traffic, Valery, with its cobbled streets, half timbered houses and waterfront (the Somme estuary) esplanade is one of the most enjoyable weekend breaks we’ve ever taken.
We arrived towards the end of the day and checked into Hotel le Port et des Bains, which is right on the quayside of the estuary. This was what I would call a very functional hotel. The rooms were basic, but comfortable, and, for the time, over 20 years ago, when we were perhaps less spoiled, it didn’t occur to us to complain and write bad reviews on TripAdvisor. The web was in its infancy; in fact, it may have still been the ‘Arpanet’, its US military predecessor. There were no mobile phones to speak of and no travel influencers turning beautiful locations into travel porn film sets.
The hotel is right on the Somme estuary and you can step right out onto the boardwalk that runs along the quayside from where you enter Valery until the end of the restaurants, hotels and shops that abut the boardwalk. There are splendid views, in the daytime, across to Le Crotoy on the other side of the estuary. There’s also a small spit that comes out from the hotel side of the quay that breaks up the vast stretch of the estuary and creates a more intimate view. The spit is a couple of hundred metres long with trees and benches to sit on.
The hotel restaurant had a warm and friendly atmosphere when we went down to dinner, and we sat in a window seat so we could see the nightlife of the town and estuary; there were boats going up and down and some pretty noisy bird life.
As I mentioned earlier, this was before our real French life had begun, and we were pretty clueless about the language and customs, so when the menu appeared, it was all in French; we felt at a distinct culinary disadvantage. Our pleas for help were met with a Gallic shrug, and we were left with only our imaginations to construct something edible. But we did understand a couple of menu items, the most appealing being ‘Fruit de Mer’. We were on the sea, albeit some distance away (I’m never sure where the salty water starts in an estuary), so it seemed like the dish to order.
Then the waiter brought what I can only describe as tools, a set of medieval-looking instruments of torture. We weren’t clear what they were for so we asked, Pourquoi? To which the waiter replied, ‘pour vous aider à manger le fruit de mer’. Charlotte looked stunned, and I felt ready for the challenge ahead.
And what a challenge it turned out to be.
When the dish appeared, the set of torture instruments made perfect sense because nothing on the plate was still except the shellfish; even they had a worryingly liquid sparkle in their eyes. You obviously needed the tools to first catch, and then consume, the fruits of the sea. I can’t tell you exactly what was on the plate, but I recognised Oysters, Clams, Cockles and a Sea Urchin. I managed to eat a lot of it, but poor Charlotte gagged at the sight of the writhing plate of sea life and ordered some local Moules Mariniere to comfort her.
After dinner, we took a stroll along the quayside and wished we’d gone to another restaurant. The boardwalk was packed with bustling eateries and bars, all beckoning us with their wonderful smells and sounds.
We took the same walk along the boardwalk in the morning and came across a very different scene; an artisan market was in full swing. Like a fair, stalls lined our walk selling everything from ceramics to flowers, and hand-made leather bags to food. We ate what looked like Paella from an enormous pan that the chef was stirring with a six-foot-long wooden spoon; it was delicious.
St-Valery-sur-Somme isn’t somewhere we’d go on an extended holiday but we would definitely go back for a long weekend sometime. We’d explore a little more, try out some different restaurants and visit the mediaeval quarter to see the famous ‘Joan of Arc’ gate and the Guillaume Towers that date from the 11th century.
We stayed at Hotel du Port et des Bains
Valery-sur-Somme is in Picardy
Quickest route from Calais is to take the A16 for around 86 km, leave at exit 24 and follow signs to Valery-sur-Somme. The journey took us about 1 hour and 45 minutes.
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Beautiful photographs Betty 😍the Somme looks so serene 🤩
I keep meaning to visit here - it’s a short drive down the motorway from our French home. Thank you for reminding me. That’s a nice set of seafood “cutlery” in the photo.