Where to holiday within an hour of calais?

[Reastie]

I’ve spent hours googling and just can’t feel inspired, can anyone recommend anywhere?

• Ideally within an hour of calais, can be up to 90 mins drive
• Doesn’t have to be the coast
• Will be self catering with car for context
• Prefer more rural/quiet holiday and don’t want to stay anywhere very busy or noisy
• A few things to keep 8yo dd happy (anything touristy in the area or even just some nice play areas or stuff for her to do to explore in the area (I don’t know, something like visiting caves or an interactive museum or something)) within fairly easy reach (wouldn’t want to travel more than 30-45 mins away to reach)
• Will have a baby with us so somewhere where we could access the above places fairly easily with a buggy/baby

It doesn’t have to be bursting with tourist attractions but needs to have some interest and things to do!

We have never taken dd abroad and going on eurotunnel is for us the least stressful way to do this.

Can anyone help at all? Feeling so confused!

Le Touquet is very nice. We were there for a few days when our DC were around that age and went to the beach, visited a nice medieval town inland. I think there are probably more things specifically for kids but we didn't really look.

Le Touquet is lovely. Etaples just over the river is also worth a visit. There's the beach, war cemetery, sea museum and all sorts.

There is also a big aquarium at Boulogne, which is a nice town to visit.

Le Tourquet kept coming up on my internet searches but I thought it might be a bit busy/touristy and not that quiet and rural? Maybe I should look for somewhere in the rough vicinity.

Le Touquet isn’t quiet, it is nice though.

Samer, Desvres, Hardelot - you don’t have to go far inland to get very quiet and very rural.

Things to do, Nausicaa in Boulogne, the beauty spot at Les Deux Caps, Le Touquet market but likely to be heaving, Aqualud water park in Le Touquet, Bagatelle theme park and seals on the beach at Berck depending on time of year, beaches everywhere. Further afield, Valloires Abbey for the gardens. The chocolate factory in Beussent. War memorials.

I may or may not be local

We love La Belle Dune. It's a Pierre et Vacance site at Fort Mahon Plage. It's like French centre parks but we've never found it too busy. It's close to the beach, you can hire bikes and it's about an hour from Calais. They do have several other sites along the coast so lots of options if you don't like that one.

Agree with Belle Dune or a p and v on the Baie de Somme which is a wildlife haven and has a steam railway. Should be quieter if not August.

I regularly take school trips to this area. It's surprisingly pretty and unspoilt once you get away from Calais. Wimereux, le Touquet, Montrueil St Omer etc are all nice towns. Camiers beach is quieter than Le Touquet itself.
If I were you I would get a self-catering gite inland but have visits to some of these towns. For your DD, nausicaa is good, as is Opalaventure at Camiers which is a sort of Go Ape-style treetop course. Indoor food market at Le Touquet is good. It's a nice, slow-paced area and feels still quite French.

It’s an hour and twenty mins, but Le Crotoy and Saint Valery-Sur-Somme are absolutely gorgeous.

Lillagroda I can’t find anything about the choc tours online anymore so I wonder if they’ve stopped, which is such a shame as that’s right up our street!

Thanks for the p&v recommendation, havent heard of it so off too google although dh wasn’t a fan of uk cp when we went.

Thank you suggestions, this is fab, off to google

It looks like they’ve moved, now that’s just inconsiderate.

I forgot Samara Arboretum, which has a paleolithic village and botanical garden, and Grottes de Naours, which they grandly call an underground city. I loved both as a kid, but both a little further out. And totally forgot the Parc du Marquenterre, which is a big birdwatchy reserve thing.

P and v do everything from large resorts with onsite facilities like Belle Dune to holiday apartment blocks and even houses within private holiday/residential areas, so there should be something to suit.

I would look at visiting Compiegne and Beauvais. They are around 2 hours drive but the area is very pleasant and the cities are both attractive with lovely countryside around. The Forest of Compiegne is a recreation area and the WW1 museum is very good. The tapestry museum at Beauvais is outstanding.

Have had a look and P&v don’t look like our kind of holiday as we’re not really a fan of holiday parks (would prefer a cottage on the edge of a typical French village type of place). The arboretum and grottes sound great, having a look between there and the coast/towards calais and bubbles will look at your suggestions.

Does anyone have a recommended self catering website for France? A lot of the ones I’ve found have optional cleaning cost at the end of the stay and I want somewhere doing this as standard.

Look at the gîtes de France website. Gîtes are usually old farm buildings converted into holiday cottages a d Gîtes de France have them just about everywhere.

It is standard in French accommodation to have the cleaning cost as optional, so you have to factor it in as part of the accommodation cost if you want it done yourself.

As mentioned up thread Saint Valery sur Somme and that bit of coastline is gorgeous. We stayed in a lovely chateau in Behen near Abbeville but before booking that I did look at Airbnb and there was a lot on there.

Dippy that’s interesting. I don’t mind paying for cleaning, the main thing that concerns me is if previous guests haven’t been very good at cleaning it it’ll be grubby, I’m quite fussy and staying somewhere that I don’t trust from that POV is just adding anxiety to my holiday...

Have found somewhere nice between arras and saint Valery sur somme if that’s a good base? Takes an hour to the coast though and says no under 8s which I think is due to water in garden so need to ask if they’d accept babies who won’t be mobile as otherwise looks lovely.

I always do the cleaning myself and IME the owners always check as they can withold your deposit if it isn't clean enough. In the places I've stayed they often have a cleaner come to do a quick once over anyway, even if you have cleaned yourself. I haven't stayed in a gîte that wasn't clean, but that's only my own experience!

Thanks dippy, that’s a bit reassuring. I guess they must get cleaners to do deep cleans periodically for stuff like dust/windows etc etc that I can’t think they’d expect guests to do.

OP, roughly where are you in the UK? Could the Portsmouth ferries to Brittany work for you as there is loads to do there and lots of quiet villages etc. We've just come back from France and this time did the Brittany route outbound and Calais-Dover back.

GU I’d love to do Brittany (have fond memories of going there as a child) but I get very sea sick so it’s definitely eurotunnel! We are quite close to where it leaves from geographically too.

We stayed here: www.campingleridin.com/en/la-villa-sp1.php

We camped but they have self altering lodges. Lovely quiet site with really nice pool.

This was over the river from Saint Valery. There’s a large wetlands area with absolutely lovely walks.