What a glorious drop of Old Blighty is Guernsey. Only 1.5 hours off the coast of France (by ferry from St. Malo) it is terribly British, with its golf courses, cream teas, and military museums. There were a few sure signs that we were not in France anymore – we saw Chippys instead of Boulangeries, Marks & Spencer instead of Galleries Lafayette, pubs with sausage rolls instead of Bistros with a Plat du jour, and red post boxes not yellow. The only sign of anything French where in the street names such as ‘Routes des Cobo” or “Rue d’Or”. And in the typical French/British way, there was a lot packed in to a small space (24 sqm) with war museums, pubs, houses, tributes to famous painters (Renoir) and authors (Victor Hugo), horses galore, hiking trails, sailing and swimming on and off the beaches and many, many cemeteries!
We spent a week in October on Guernsey – the trip was inspired by my husband’s grandfather who grew up there – and despite many walks around many cemeteries we never found their name on any headstones – although we tracked down a few of the houses the family had lived in. I’ve set out a few of the curiosities of Guernsey first below and then a few more details on St Peter Port, the beaches and our favourite walks.
Guernsey curiosities
Now some of these might just be British curiosities, so forgive me – this is more things I found curious coming from French country life across to British Island life that I observed.
Kind Signs – signs informing the public or requesting the public to do something were headed with ‘Kind Notice’ or ‘Polite Notice’ ahead of the request and the elderly pedestrian crossing signs made us chuckle
Parking impossible – there are very few parking spaces near shops or beaches or walks and the big parking lots they do have allow generous lengths of stay – ‘vehicles left more than a month will be removed’
Seaweed industry – they have cleverly taken advantage of the immense amounts of seaweed that washes up on Guernsey shores and have a whole seaweed industry headed up by the Guernsey Seaweed Company who not only harvest and sell the seaweed as seasoning and moisturiser but they also conduct Seaweed foraging and tasting tours.
Chippys Abound – the fish ‘n chip shops on Guernsey are called Chippys and sell fried cod and chips but also lots of other interesting things like battered savs and Baps
Bunkers, Loop towers and canons – every inch of the coastline is watched over by remnants of defence systems used to defend Guernsey from invaders over centuries of wars. The channel islands were the only British Territories to be occupied by the Germans in WWII so theres a lot of museums dedicated to this time as well. They still have an active firing range too – which we came across on one of our walks.
Beach kiosks -These charming iconic kiosks are located at every beach and are often just little portable buildings selling ice-cream and sweets – some of the menu items we saw were Curly wurly, Fuzzy floats and Quavers.
Greetings – The French equivalent of ‘Ça va? – ‘Ça va!’ on Guernsey is ‘Alright love?’- ‘Alright!’
Witches and wild goats – we were struck by the many Brothers Grimm style fairytales we came across around the island – one of a horse-sized goat that cursed those that came across it, another of the witches that gathered at the Dolmen near the witches woods and another about a fairy invasion that created the fairy ring at Pleinmont.
Golf course rambling – we were amazed to see people crossing fairways, often with their dogs while players were on the course!
Exploring pretty St. Peter Port
St Peter Port is the only town on the island and we enjoyed walking around the pedestrians only Mill street, Burnt lane, Forest lane and Smith street and even took a jog up one of the many ‘steps’ – constitution steps (couldn’t resist!). There’s plenty of pubs in St. Peter Port and tea houses and cafes. Most of the bars and pubs are lined up along the port itself but unfortunately the busy rd runs between them and the water. We walked around to the 800 year old Castle Coronet and saw them fire off the midday guns and enjoyed an exhibition they had of the sketching club that had drawn the ramparts, turrets and so forth of the castle.
We also hiked up Hauteville street to see Victor Hugo’s house which is closed for winter but we could see the view he had back to his homeland of France which inspired him to write many of his famous novels and plays including my Mum’s favourite Les Miserables – which we have seen many times. Victor Hugo lived in Guernsey in exile from 1856-70 as Napoleon the III apparently didn’t take too kindly to him organising resistance against Napoleon’s coup d’etat – amongst other things!
Savouring the delights of British cuisine on Guernsey
As I always love to do when arriving in a new place, we looked for a supermarket for a nosey – and found a Marks & Spenser food store which had all the things I had been homesick for (and couldn’t get in France) – sausage rolls, crumpets, taco shells, sour cream, cheddar cheese and rice crackers! I was determined to have a Devonshire tea (or cream tea as I discovered they call it) whilst in Guernsey and found the absolutely perfect one on one of our hikes at the Renoir Tea rooms. And of course we couldn’t leave without having a pie and mash at the pub, and cod and chips from the Cobo Chippy eaten on the sea wall at sunset.
Surviving the skinny, curly, walled in Guernsey roads
We took our rather large French left-hand drive Espace Renault on the ferry over to Guernsey and soon discovered it was not made for Guernsey’s ridiculously narrow, high stone-walled ‘lanes’ (they don’t qualify as roads in my opinion). As the passenger, I was in the centre of the road and had to close my eyes most of the time as oncoming traffic came within a centimetre of me every time we passed. We soon discovered the 25 speed limits were in miles but we weren’t brave enough to go more than 10 miles per hour as at any given time you’d either have to mount the pavement to pass an oncoming car/bus/truck, or duck into a pullout or even reverse. There are many blind corners with no mirrors and many one lane streets with no indication whether they are one or two way. The biggest impediment to progress and safety however were the solid 6-10 foot high stone walls lining the roads that meant you had no idea where you were (on the coast, in a meadow? on the airfield?). It also took us a while to understand the terminology on the road signs. At 4-way cross-roads there are signs that say ‘Filter’ and ‘Indicate left or right’ (we thought that was a given!). The intersection is painted yellow with cross-hatchings and we soon realised this was their form of a roundabout !.
You had to stop a good 10 metres back from an intersection at traffic lights to allow turning traffic to negotiate their way around the high stone walls and if you came across a cyclist (there were many) you just had to coast along slowly behind. Walking is just as difficult as driving on these roads as there are very few footpaths and where they do exist they are used by oncoming cars to pass each other. There are no poles or post on these sidewalks so they can be used as roads – so Bus stops are just painted yellow sign on the footpath and we saw people standing tight against the wall at these signs waiting for buses and praying they wouldn’t be driven over. We also had to laugh as well at how they are so terribly polite with their road signs – as the sign above demonstrates!
Ocean, golf-course, beach, cliff-top and artists walks around Guernsey
The highlight for us on Guernsey was the many varied walks on offer – some with delicious treats (ice creams, cream teas) along the way, others with amazing vistas over the ocean or alongside golf courses and others following the footsteps of famous artists who painted here.
Cobo Bay beach was our go to for our local morning run – once we’d found a way to walk through the nearby housing commission flats to a track that ran behind the high school sports grounds down to the beach – as there are no footpaths along the roads! This beach has a couple of headlands with the requisite defence towers and some sandy patches, rocky outcrops, lots of seaweed and a big sea wall. we saw fitness classes in the late afternoon, horses being ridden at sunrise and people enjoying the Cobo Chippy cod and chips at sunset on thios lovely wide stretch of beach.
The 7 Guernsey Ice-cream walking routes – each of these take you past an iconic kiosk perched on the cliff or beach edge. The ice-cream routes map shares the story of each kiosk’s proprietor and we saw many locals greet them warmly as they stopped for a cuppa or cone on their walk.
The ‘ daily mile’ route markers were located at car parks that were at the start of a mile long walk around an interesting headland or stretch of beach and encouraged people to park and walk a mile on a pretty stretch of coast each day.
Routes Tranquilles – there are anumber of inland green walking routes such as the St Saviouers Reservoir and the nature reserve walk – but unfortunaltey we couldn’t find anywhere to park to get to the start of these walks!
Vale headland -beach walk we loved this walk along the coast up around Vale in the northern tip of Guernsey. We parked at les Foullages dolmen (ancient burial site) and walked past the L’Anseese Common golf club and the Royal Guernsey golf club, (ironically separated by the tip) and along Pembroke bay and around to Fontenelle Bay. There were signs warning us that we were walking through a shooting range and also to watch out for stray golf balls – luckily we encountered neither. The greens were very lush and provided quite a contrast to the rocky craggy coastline. There were a few ladies swimming in the sheltered waters of Pembroke Bay and I was tempted!
Saints Bay – Petit Port walk – this was probably our favourite walk and we parked at the Saints Bay Hotel and walked around the edges of the high cliffs then descended on a rather rough steep track to the pebbly beach of Saints Bay where a few brave swimmers were taking a dip (it was 15c outside and apparently 16c in the water). It was so pretty we decided to keep walking around to Moulin Huet Bay and as luck would have it, we stumbled across part of the Renoir walking route that had frames erected to show what he was looking at as he created his 15 watercolours during his month on Guernsey. The best part of all was that the walk ended at Renoir’s tea rooms which was a pretty little cottage tucked into a tiny cove, down a steep path leading off from the hiking track on Moulin Huet Bay. The sun was beaming down, there wasn’t a drop of wind and only 2 other people were there and we ordered ‘cream tea’ and sat staring out at the beautiful turquoise waters and slate cliffs that inspired Renoir. J
Jerbourg peninsula walk – this peninsula is on the south-eastern tip of Guernsey and we walked from St Martins point around to Jerbourg point.This was where the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel pie society novel was set and takes you past some of the iconic sites in the book and film such as Calais Lane, the Doyle monument and the old german bunkers. We loved the walk for its craggy clifftops and scooped out bays and whilst it was windy and a little stormy the setting was quite dramatic.
