ON TOUR: Calais. Not just a gateway to France

Editor-at-Large Jeff Mills reports. If you drive off the Eurotunnel Le Shuttle or ferry in Calais and simply head towards the nearest motorway in the rush to a far-distant holiday destination you are missing a trick. Calais has quietly become an interesting place to visit in its own right.

It was for years a handy place to buy cheap beer and wine for people off on what became known as ‘booze-cruises’ in pre-Brexit days, when we were able to load up the car with virtually as much alcohol as we could find
space in the boot, or in some extreme cases, in the back of a van.

Throw in a decent lunch, or dinner if you were staying the night, before heading back to the ferry or tunnel and you could regale everyone back home with stories about how much money you had saved and what fun the trip had been.

That all changed when we left the European Union. There is an upside. Borderless booze may have gone but now there’s duty-free shopping instead. And that means you can still buy a fair amount of wine and beer but now, if anything, it’s even less expensive than before, even though there are limits on the amount you may bring back to the UK.

And it gets better, the locals in Calais and the surrounding Pas de Calais area seem to be no longer simply putting up with their nearest neighbours from across the Channel, they are now bending over backwards to welcome us to their shores.

None more so than those engaged in selling vino. As one senior French wine merchant, Jerome Pont of Calais Vins, explains, “The years of the pandemic and Brexit changed the rules of the game. UK customers are very important to us so we are doing all we can to help them.”

One of the moves is the introduction of schemes which allow you to reclaim around 15% French VAT by scanning the barcode on your receipt at the Eurotunnel terminal or ferry port before you board.

It is the town’s Mayor, Natacha Bouchart, in office since 2008, who is credited with regenerating Calais. The Covid pandemic may have meant that France was, temporarily, off limits to Britons, but much of the enforced down time seems to have been used to make the town a more attractive proposition for visitors.

As a result Calais’ centre has been smartened up, the shops and restaurants are more appealing than before and there are plenty of attractions aimed not only at the French but at visitors, too. If you want top-class French produce you really don’t need to travel much beyond Calais.

There is a typical market, of course, on Wednesday and Saturday mornings in the Place d’Armes, close to the port and there are others in nearby towns. There’s a large market in nearby Ardres each Thursday morning, for example, where you can spend a few happy hours admiring the floral sculptures of this ‘Ville de Fleurie’, close to the ‘Field of the Cloth of Gold’ where King Henry VIII or England and Francis I of France held a summit and each took the opportunity to show off to the other how rich he was.

Meanwhile down on the rejuvenated seafront the mechanised Calais Dragon, which provides rides along the promenade, may not at first glance seem like a must-try attraction but it does have a quirky appeal and is a good way to get a seagull’s-eye view of the coastline.

An even better view of the coast and the entire Calais area can be had from the clock tower of Calais’ Hotel de Ville (Town Hall) where on the way up to the belfry (there’s a lift) you can also visit some of the Flemish renaissance-style rooms, including the one where General De Gaulle was married. And afterwards you can even admire a sculpture on the green just outside with the General and Winston Churchill looking very friendly together.

Hotels are good value, too. I chose the 18th-century, three-star Meurice, rebuilt after the Second World War but still atmospheric, in a faded grandeur kind of way. It’s right in the centre, just a few steps from the main square, Place d’Armes, dominated by the 13th-century Tour du Guet.

There is no restaurant in the hotel itself but a good breakfast is served in what had once been a grand dining room.  But there are plenty of options for eating and drinking within easy reach. I chose to join the locals for a pre-lunch drink at Le Café du Minck, right by the fish market in the harbour area. There’s nothing smart about it but the clientele and the décor, mostly retired fishermen and a fine collection of uniform caps from around the world, make it the perfect place to dodge any tourists.

And a few steps away the seafood restaurant Oh! Mouette (Oh, Seagull) is a must if you like some of the freshest fish to be found anywhere. The chances are if you glance out of the window you’ll be able to spot the boat which caught it.

And when it comes to the real reason for the trip, to stock up on decent wine, it could hardly be easier. There are plenty of wine shops and hypermarkets en-route to both the Shuttle terminal and the ferry port, so filling the car boot on the way home could not be easier.


Fact file

You can travel to Calais by Eurotunnel Le Shuttle or on board ferries operated by DFDS and P&O Ferries.

At the time of writing UK duty-free allowances were 42 litres of beer and 18 litres of still (not sparkling) wine as well as nine litres of sparkling or fortified wine, which you could substitute for four litres of spirits.

www.eurotunnel.com/uk

www.dfds.com   www.poferries.com

www.calais-vins.com

http://meurice.calais.hotels-fr.net/en

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