Wednesday Walk - along Dunkirk beach front and harbour in France

We are enjoying our second week in France, and today we took a trip to Dunkirk on the North Coast, close to Belgium.

It was an absolute cracker of a day. Quite warm, but luckily we were enjoying a nice cool breeze from the sea, so we didnt over-cook today !

It was our first trip to Dunkirk, so we were really following our nose on our walk today. We started out at the museum for operation Dynamo, which was about the evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940 during world war 2. Very interesting - especially as I didnt really know the story up to this point.

Just across the road from the museum was a high point that gave us a nice view over to the beach front and promenade.

There is a lovely board walk right along the sea front and this lovely footbridge took us over to the main beach area.

We went for a nice leisurely stroll along the front until we found a nice restaurant and stopped for lunch - it was burgers all round today !

There were some nice newly developed buildings along this side of the beach, and it was quite busy.

There was some kind of event going on at one point - something to do with skating and BMX I think, although it was quiet in there when we passed it.

We were quite enjoying the walk along. After lunch we walked further until we found an ice cream shop. With ice creams in hand we headed back towards the harbour area.

I have to say the beach front was really nice, and obviously quite popular - for some reason I hadnt pictured Dunkirk as a major beach destination, but it really was busy and quite nice.

Retracing our steps we went back past the footbridge.

This part of the beach was a lot more quiet as it was not as accessible, nor flat - although it was very pretty !

The path ran alongside the river and soon took us towards the harbour.

The harbour area in Dunkirk is absolutely massive. The shot above only shows one small part of it, and it has piers and breakwaters going quite far out.

We decided to walk out along the pier closest to us as it was such a nice day.

There were quite a few people fishing on it.

And boats were zipping in and out the harbour.

We walked out as far as we could go. We got a slight hint that they didnt want us to go any further !

I quite liked the sign that was on the barrier !

From there a large breakwater stretched wayout further to sea - helping to provide a large area of sheltered water in the harbour. The breakwater shapes are designed to absorb the energy in the waves when they hit it.

From there, we went back inshore, passing this old defensive bunker in the port, which I assume was from world war 2. It looks German in design (it has the same air vents as the German bunkers we saw in Normandy).

We then passed this memorial from World War 2.

And right across the road from it was this interesting sculpture.

We certainly enjoyed our walk today. It was about 10,000 steps all in, and we were quite tired by the time we got back to the car. Dunkirk was quite lovely, and we enjoyed the fresh sea air - a very nice Wednesday walk indeed !