April 11 - Dunkerque

The Le Tréport Church on our way out of town.

And the train station.  Our hotel is directly adjacent to the station. 

It was overcast and threatening rain today, so we decided on an indoor activity.  We took a drive up through the countryside.  Lots of yellow and green.

We stopped at a rest stop for gas.  They had lots of goodies (that we didn’t buy).  It is interesting to see the variety of treats, including some KitKat Balls (haven’t seen those in the US but they look good).

Our destination is Dunkerque (Dunkirk), site of a massive evacuation of the British and French armies near the start of World War II.  When the Nazis surrounded the armies the British and French decided to try to evacuate the army but felt it would be possible to only evacuate 20,000 to 30,000 men.  But in the end the evacuated over 338,000.  In part because many British and Belgian fishing boats, pleasure boats, ferries, Thames vessels, and boats of all types participate.  To quote on of the researched sites, around 850 vessels took part in the evacuation, with about 750 to 800 of them being a mix of small civilian vessels. 

Very interesting building for the 1940 Museum.  Looks like it dates from the war. 

Some of the displays.

Some models.

Photos from the evacuation of the soldiers.

Over 100,000 were left behind and taken prisoner. The first part of the museum exhibition was about the lives and conditions of these prisoners.  Very sobering.

After visiting the museum we drove down to a memorial…

and eventually found a parking place so we could go down to the beach.  It is huge, which is a good thing because there were a lot of soldiers that needed to be evacuate. 

We found a place on the beachfront for lunch and were back on the road in the early afternoon.  It was very windy on the beach but the flower pots were holding up and in full bloom.

When we got back to the hotel the sun was out and the skies were blue.  This is the first time in over a week that we have had such a pretty day.  So we took a walk along the beach in Mers-Les-Bain for better photos.

And the sunny weather made the cliffs at the end of the beach much more visible and dramatic. 

There was a French fry and pastry shop on the beach, just across from our hotel.  Dinner tonight consisted of huge beignets with Nutella inside.  Not very nutritious but handy.  And tasty.

Just as we were getting ready to go to be tonight we heard fireworks going off.  What luck.  We could see them from the corner of our window.  They were going off at the end of the pier in Le Tréport.  Great way to end the day.