Berck sur Mer Kite Festival

15 April 2006
An early start - yawn. 5am in the morning on the day after a gallon of ale isn't everyone's idea of sensible, but when have we ever done sensible ?

I suppose we could have flown to Berck, but Eurotunnel is easier .
Pausing only briefly at the hypermarket to get some scoff it was straight to Berck as quickly as possible.

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Twenty years of kite festivals in Berck - we rather had high hopes for this year, but there was a lot less to be seen that what was there last year. Still, it's always a good day out.

We were particularly impressed with the wedding party. There were several decent kites hanging up inside to look at and as always loads of stalls to see.
The beach was full of kites and kiters, some were new, like this puffer fish, others were old favourites from previous years.

I'm told that previous years in Berck were cold, but I don't remember it being so. This year we had a reasonable early afternoon until the monsoon started at 4pm.
As the weather had very much taken a turn for the worse, the plan was to drive along the coast to find a restaurant for tea. However, French road signs aren't all they might be - the main signposted road out of Boulougne soon deteriorated into a one track country lane. Matters weren't helped by the fact that the few restaurants we found that were open had no parking anywhere near them, or weren't planning to open for another hour.

In retrospect it was Easter, so most places were going to be closed.
Surprisingly we found an excellent place to eat in Cite Europe - not just a tourist trap - the French were eating there too. With really good food and eight different fruit flavoured lagers we really had something good to sleep off on the train home!

Same time next year ?