Le Touquet is a small seaside town with around 5000 inhabitants, though in summer months, that number swells to a whopping 100,000 as this place is hugely popular with Parisians. Hence it’s full name Le Touquet Paris-Plage, the Paris beach. An all year-round resort, at Christmas visitors flock to enjoy the lights, the market and the special ambience of Le Touquet which is known as the “pearl of the Opal Coast”. Le Touquet has bags of charm and is quite unique amongst the many charming seaside towns of France. For one thing it has a certain English je ne sais quoi.
A unique “English” seaside resort in France
That’s because the town was developed by an Englishman to have appeal for Brits at the beginning of the 20th century. You’ll spot Cotswold style cottages, thatched roofs, tudor style manor houses and coiffed English style gardens – not quite what you’d expect to see in a northern French seaside resort. But it works. Somehow, the Englishness wedded to the Frenchness in the shape of an abundant café lifestyle, restaurants galore, a wonderful street market and fabulous French shops – is a marriage made in heaven.
Sporting Paradise
The Le Touquet resort was designed with sports in mind. At a time when people were just starting to see sport as a recreational hobby, the creators of Le Touquet were way ahead of their time. Tennis courts, a horse race course, swimming pools, polo, horse riding, golf – everything designed to please the the wealthy of the day. It’s rumoured that Queen Elizabeth II learned to sand yacht here as a teenager! It still is a sporting paradise and hosts major tennis matches, has a 65 acre equestrian centre, three fantastic golf courses and water sports galore. It also is where Enduropale takes place - a legend in France. Around 1000 professional and amateur bikers and 800 quad bikers take part in a beach race at the start of the year in an event that kick starts the global motorsport season.