Quote:
Originally Posted by 10023
Italy and Spain tend to be more overrun than France, because the Spanish and Italians don't have quite as much money to spend (and I guess the weather is more consistent). As a result pretty much the whole southern coast of Spain, at least the Costa Blanca, has been completely destroyed as a place that anyone other than people seeking cheap packaged holidays would ever want to go.
The Amalfi coast and Capri are physically stunning, but are spoiled by accessibility. Capri is hugely overbuilt. If they would get rid of the day trippers by restricting the number of ferries (and raising the prices 10-20x), it would be a much nicer place to visit.
|
In terms of unspoilt and beautiful coast, the big shocker (and revelation) of last summer for me was... the coast of Cotentin.
I went there with a girl from Portland (Oregon) because we wanted to escape the insane heat wave in Paris, and Cotentin is the only fresh place in continental Europe when there is a major heatwave (temperature in Cherbourg was 70F as opposed to 102F in Paris). The only goal of the trip was to escape from the horrible heat. I thought Cherbourg was ugly and there would be nothing scenic to explore there, but much to our surprise we discovered one of the most impressive, unspoiled, and crowd-free coastline in Europe, with the tallest cliffs in all of Europe.
The coastline reminded us a LOT of the US Northwest Pacific coastline. It was incredible to find that only 4 hours drive from Paris!
We walked on that trail at 9pm with the sun still out (thanks to the long summer days of northern Europe!):
And discovered this little isolated cove at the bottom of a cliff where I felt I was transported back to some areas I had explored near Neah Bay in the state of Washington.
Then we walked back to the restaurant on top of another cliff 15 minutes walk from the cove to watch the sunset at 10:20pm:
While eating the best lobster I've had in a long time (cooked in the fire of the chimney of the restaurant hall!):
And we were almost alone. Like you have an entire coastline all to yourself like in the wildest parts of the US West Coast. Right in the middle of North-Western Europe! Crazy.
The day before we had this huge beach almost entirely to ourselves. There were in total no more than 10 kids in the entire beach, right in the middle of July!
And then the next day we took a boat to go on an island off the coast:
And we explored a lovely island enjoying nearly frost-free climate all year round thanks to being in the middle of the Gulf Stream:
And the craziest thing about all this is there are virtually no tourists AT ALL (except for the last island). It's something I'll never understand. Some stunning scenic regions are totally off the radar.
I haven't even mentioned that we ate some dirt-cheap wild mussels (wild! fished only in July) in a tiny little harbor nestled in a cove with the workers of the nearby nuclear plant during their lunch break, walked on the seabed between a tiny fishing port and an island with 17th century fortifications more than half a mile off the coast (this region has the highest tidal ranges in Europe), visited a real nuclear submarine (retired from the French nuclear fleet), saw the largest and deepest aquarium in Europe (3-floor tall, recreating a real reef of French Polynesia with the different species at different depths, including sharks), and so on. Surreal when I think back about it, because it's the last region a French person would think about visiting.
Prev
Linear Mode
