A royal time of it on a trip to Jersey
Its golden sands and quiet charm are what made the island famous long before recent dark events. John S Doyle is impressed by what's on offer to tourists
Coming from an island ourselves we think we have the measure of this one. We're staying somewhere in the middle of the west coast and we want to visit a beach halfway along the north coast. If we start after breakfast we should be there by lunch.
We start after breakfast and are there 15 minutes later.
As Detective Sergeant Jim Bergerac put it, on television all those years ago, "Jersey is an island. It's nine miles by five. And if you drive very slowly, you can take a whole hour to go right round it." Or as Jennifer, our contact from the tourist board, put it, everywhere is about 15 minutes away.
We are staying on the top of a sand dune, in a very small house with portholes. It is literally shipshape, coming to a point at the "bow" and the "stern"; at one end are the bathroom and kitchen, and at the other end two bunkrooms. There is something very pleasant about going out in the morning, down a few steps to the beach, having a swim and then coming back in your bathrobe for a hot shower.
The beach is St Ouen's Bay, a long stretch of lively sea favoured by surfers. During the Second World War the occupying Germans thought this was the most likely spot for Britain to invade, and the many concrete bunkers and gun emplacements they built still stand, strung out along the beach. The attack never came.
Jersey is in the English Channel, a few miles from St-Malo, and was once part of the Duchy of Normandy. The island dialect of Jerriais, a form of old Norman French, is still spoken in some parts; an ad for stout comes out as: "Guinness es bouan por te". Today, Jersey is a dependency of the British crown but not part of the UK or the EU.
It does feel more like Britain than France -- although it has always been portrayed as a kind of idealised Britain where the sun shines, the villages are quiet, prosperous and well-kept, the hedges are clipped and the cars drive (on the left) at no more than 40mph. For the tourist, calm is the word. In a hired car we tour the narrow roads and prove Bergerac wrong; you cannot see the whole island in two days, let alone an hour. Apart from a class of dual carriageway along the south coast by St Helier, there is no temptation to speed, and on the "green lanes", which are meant for walkers and cyclists, it's 15mph maximum.
The fields are lush and the hedgerows leafy; you can't miss the Jersey cows and the famous Jersey Royal potatoes. There is very fine stonework on the houses, which are usually built side-on to the road. The stone is pinky-red, and the stonecutters show their skill in bending the walls into the curve of a road, or allowing for an inset at a gate into a field.
The north and west coasts are the least developed. Apart from our own beach we swam at Greve de Lecq in the north, a beautiful bay with old-gold coloured sand. Plemont, at the northwestern tip, tempted, but the swell from the extreme tide (10 or 11 metres from low to high water) made us settle for breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup in the cliff-top cafe. The east coast has several attractive resorts, including Gorey, which, on my visit before all the recent horrible headlines, looked like a holiday beach from the old Beano comics, with yellow sand, a castle in the distance, a promenade, ice cream, chortling seagulls ... and I'm sure I saw an old tar sitting on a boat mending nets.
The south is largely taken up with the capital, St Helier, and the town it faces across the bay, St Aubin, where we had a super dinner of scallops and sea bass at the Boat House, an elegant new building on the harbour -- so good that we went back the next night for haddock in Jersey ale batter, homemade chips and mushy peas, and some Jersey ale on the side.
Bicycles are probably the best way to explore the interior, but we ran out of time. Not to be missed are the Jersey War Tunnels, an astonishing grid built with slave labour by the Germans, who occupied the island from July 1940 to May 1945. The place is now a most impressive museum documenting the history of that hard time. It is literally chilling -- it is very cold down there -- to read the anonymous denunciations of neighbours; see the faces of local women who took up with the soldiers; assemble a cat's whiskers radio to listen to news of the fall of Stalingrad.
The Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust is a relief after that. Founded 40 years ago by the author and naturalist Gerald Durrell, the zoo's aim is to save species from extinction (the Mallorcan midwife toad, for example). Set out in extensive gardens, it has such delights as a clatter of big fruit bats, the white-crowned robin chat, the maned wolf, and some cute "free-range" monkeys such as the black lion tamarin.
Our shipshape house, called Barge Aground, has an interesting history. Built in 1935 for Lionel Cox, a man who had travelled the world and had a taste for antiques, it was commandeered by the Nazis in 1941 -- Machine Gun Battalion C6 used it as their canteen, and are said to have looted the antiques.
Cox reappeared after the war, and in his will he left the house to the Scouts. It is now one of several properties refurbished by the Jersey Heritage Trust and available to rent. It's a place of great charm and comfort, with its art-deco metal french windows and parquet floor, and furniture of the period. It's an ideal base for a holiday and would fit six (a couch in the main room opens out into a bed). GETTING THERE
Aer Lingus operates three flights a week from Dublin to Jersey, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Flights operate from end of March to end of October. Visit www.aerlingus.com.
The Barge Around is part of the Jersey Heritage Trust's Heritage Lets programme. Visit www.jerseyheritage trust.org or call 00 44 (0)1534 633304. For other info, see www.jersey.com or call 01534 448800.www. hertz.co.uk; 0800 735 1014.
- John S Doyle
