Christmas 2019 for us was spent in the tranquil little town of Hardelot, just south of Boulogne-sur-Mer in France. It can be a tricky time of year for me and makes me want to run very far away, so the last few years we have spent Christmas anywhere else but home – I am very fortunate that my family do not mind this and come along with us!
In the past we’ve been down to the Devon area for Christmas holidays and rented a little house in the middle of nowhere – however for this trip, we really struggled to find anything suitable that would fit everyone in comfortably as well as our family dogs. It was by pure coincidence when searching on Airbnb that we came across some options in France which turned out ideal. We found from travelling over to France we were able to get a property for half the price that we would have in Devon, and the drive was 2 hours shorter! There was a fair bit more preparation to be made and costs to be incurred with travelling on the Eurotunnel from Folkestone to Calais and getting the dog’s passports (which was a bit of a pain with Brexit being so up in the air at that time!) but on the whole it was definitely a much better value for money option.
We ended up literally a 30 minutes drive from Calais in a quiet little town called Hardelot. It seemed a place that the French vacate for winter but was ideal for us being somewhere so quiet. There wasn’t a huge amount of sightseeing done whilst there – that wasn’t the aim of the trip for me – but we explored the quaint little town, made regular trips to the boulangerie and had hot chocolate and crepes nearly every day! We were a 5 minute drive to the beach which was heaven for the dogs and made a nice change from the mud at home! You could also imagine the town is heaving in the summer as the beach is just gorgeous – it is so vast and clean.
We did a few little day trips here and there to neighbouring towns and ventured out as far as Honfleur one day. Honfleur is something like the third most visited place in France. It was a beautiful little harbour with cobbled streets and fresh seafood in every restaurant.
The town of Hardelot had a really helpful tourist information centre that gave us all the details of any Christmas events that were happening during the two week period we were there. It wasn’t a lot as the town was so quiet over the Christmas period but we joined in on the french festivities that did happen. For New Years Eve we headed down to the beach just before midnight to light a Christmas pudding sparkler and toast to the new year and were pleasantly surprised to find a number of locals up and down the beach drinking champagne and letting off the odd firework. It was actually very sweet.
I couldn’t recommend Hardelot anymore and would love to rent a seaside apartment for a few days in the summer. It was a 3-4 hour drive door-to-door and would be perfect for a weekend getaway!
Christmas Travel;
- Booking your accommodation needs to happen as early as possible – almost as soon as one Christmas ends you need to book for the following year!
- Eurotunnel – this process for us was pretty easy. I had never done it before and was driving as a single parent, with Faye and our dog Sydney. I was a little nervous but it was actually very straightforward and it’s really well equipped for dogs. You just need to make sure you’ve got all the relevant bits for your car for driving in France – including your International Drivers Permit (£5 from your local Post Office). The worst part about the car equipment for France I found was the headlamp converters – they come with the biggest instruction booklet and I was terrified of putting them in the wrong place! The ferry is also another option for travel but I went with the tunnel because it was quicker.
- Travelling with your Pet – this has probably all changed now (after 31st January Brexit deadline) but we had to take our dogs to the vets to get their passports and they needed to have a Rabies jab – you need to be doing these things at least 4 months prior to travel. Before you travel back the to the UK you also need to take them to a vet in France to be given a worming tablet. All in all quite easy, but a lot of information to process the first time you travel with them. It also cost around £150 all in for the passport, jabs and worming tablet but once it’s done the first time the cost is no way near as high for subsequent trips.
OUR TRAVEL DIARY 
Fab pics of Faye in her beret! Sounds like a great find and a lovely family Christmas XX