2024-10-07 05:38:45
The British Channel Island is in many ways a special treat: it is much warmer than you would expect. It changes face depending on the tide. And when it comes to food, France’s influence is unmistakable.
Even arriving is an adventure: the airport runway is short, there is almost no room to brake and taxi. That’s why pilots crash their aircraft onto the first few meters of the concrete runway with so much momentum that sometimes everything that isn’t nailed down flies through the cabin. This is generally not dangerous. But it’s the first indication that Jersey is a strange island.
With its 120 square kilometers, Jersey is the largest of the British Channel Islands (although it is not officially part of Great Britain, more on that in a moment), located in the bay of Saint Malo, about 25 kilometers off the coast of France . From Neanderthal remains to Nazi bunkers, there are remnants of over 100,000 years of history to see here.
One of the peculiarities is the breathtaking nature: there are tens of square kilometers of mudflats with ancient watchtowers where it is also possible to stay overnight. Palm trees and subtropical flora appear, although Jersey is not known to be in the Mediterranean. The island owes this thanks to the Gulf Stream which guarantees mild temperatures all year round. In late November the thermometer rises to an average of between 10 and 17 degrees. Night frost is unknown here, even in the winter months, making the island a year-round destination.
A particularly strange natural phenomenon is the tidal range: it is twelve meters and there are only a few places in the world where the difference between the tides is even clearer; At low tide, the water recedes so much that the island’s surface practically doubles and an almost endless mudflat becomes visible. Then the beaches become wide and white, ships in the harbor glide onto land on bollards as high as houses, and fishermen drive their tractors to distant oyster and mussel beds to tend their seafood.
A mix of England and France
A walk on the seabed is therefore one of the first things to do in Jersey. You can spend up to an hour trudging through the unreal landscape of exposed mudflats and learning about mussels, crabs, arachnids and more before the tide forces you to turn back.
From time to time you pass tall metal structures: they are lifeguard towers in which anyone who has forgotten the time and is caught in the water can take refuge. While hiking the mudflats you can also visit Elizabeth Castle, a fortress on a rocky islet in St. Aubin Bay, accessible only on foot or by amphibious vehicle at low tide.
Like its sisters, the other Channel Islands of Guernsey, Alderney, Herm and Sark, Jersey is a wonderful mix of French and British culture, with almost all that remains of the French in the street and place names and, thankfully, in the kitchen. In 1066 William, Duke of Normandy, conquered England and became King of England.
The British lands on the mainland were lost over the next few centuries, but the Channel Islands remained in the possession of the Norman dukes. Today the Duke of Normandy is a certain Charles III, King of England, and the islands officially belong neither to Great Britain nor to any other country, but are directly subordinated to the monarchy as the so-called “possession of the crown”.
Jersey has its money
This brings with it several oddities. Jersey was never part of the European Union and therefore never left the EU. For the approximately 100,000 residents, not much has changed with Brexit. The islands have their own parliaments, they print their own money, they raise their own taxes, they have their own traffic laws and regulations – but they rarely deviate from British regulations because anything else would be too much trouble; an exception is extremely low tax rates. The President of Parliament is called Landvogt and is also the supreme judge. All in all, a captivating situation that would fit perfectly into an Agatha Christie novel.
Or in one by Rosamunde Pilcher, because here it seems Pilcher-esque: idyllic villages in a largely undeveloped landscape, dotted with palms, orchids and banana trees alongside conifers, brooms and rhododendrons. The roads almost disappear between the huge hedges to the left and right of the road. Only God (or maybe the governor) knows why the streets are so narrow almost everywhere that two cars can’t pass each other without colliding. At least it helps calm traffic.
Another special feature are the so-called Conway Towers, watchtowers in or on the sea, with which the British governor Henry Conway wanted to protect his Wadden Islands from a French invasion in the 18th century. In some of them you can also stay overnight, such as the 1782 Seymour Tower, two kilometers from the coast of La Rocque, in the far south-east.
First, you need to hike here at low tide. When the tide comes in, you can sit atop the granite fortifications, fish, stargaze, or sleep in one of six bunk beds. A garbage bag serves as a toilet. In 1987 two riders and their horses even managed to escape into the tower because they could no longer find their way back from the muddy areas to the safety of the land in the fog. It is not known how they managed to get the animals up the steep stone stairs. In any case, the horses only wanted to go down again after a sand ramp had been built with bulldozers.
Traces of the German occupation
At high tide, Jersey is completely transformed. Most of the beaches disappear and the waves crash against the cliffs, especially in the north and west of the island. This is most impressive at La Corbière, on the southwestern tip. There is Britain’s first reinforced concrete lighthouse, built in 1873 on a tidal island and only accessible via an access road at low tide. The promontory is so shaken by the storm that neither trees nor bushes grow.
Another tower is growing into the sky right on the promontory. You can live in it and enjoy a fantastic all-round view, but this building is a German heritage. On June 30, 1940, Wehrmacht soldiers occupied the Channel Islands, from which all British troops had recently been withdrawn.
The Germans remained until the end of World War II, switching from left-hand to right-hand traffic and building bunkers, coastal batteries and other fortifications to defend against an invasion that never came: D-Day, the day of the landing in Normandy. on June 6 In June 1944, the Allies simply left the Channel Islands behind.
Nazi legacies can be found everywhere in Jersey, from forced labor camps to the aforementioned seven-storey fire tower at La Corbière, which is now called the Radio Tower and, furnished in Bauhaus style, is rented out to tourists. In the Jersey War Tunnels, near the town of Beaumont, the island’s government has set up a museum where visitors can learn about the period of German occupation.
Cuisine close to France
One of Jersey’s strengths is its cuisine, which can easily be discovered in Saint Helier, the thousand-year-old capital: although the islanders consider themselves “thoroughly British”, the culinary sophistication of neighboring France is unmistakable. Together with the influences of immigrants (only 10% of the residents have Portuguese roots) and the typical ingredients of the region, the result is a fantastic blend. Whether it’s the 1877 “Lamplighter” pub or the “Pomme d’Or” hotel, where the writer Victor Hugo stayed, island cuisine is excellent practically everywhere.
You eat particularly well at the Central Market, a historic covered market with wrought iron columns and numerous restaurants, shops and stalls. Here a freshly harvested local oyster costs the equivalent of less than a euro. Locals are very proud of the spicy Jersey Royals, new potatoes fertilized with seaweed, and their cows. They even built a monument to the latter in Saint Helier. Their milk is fattier than that of other cattle breeds, which gives Jersey Cheese a particularly creamy and tasty note.
Otherwise you can go on a hike in Jersey. Or by bicycle. Or swim, although neither the water nor the beaches necessarily have Caribbean qualities. Or head to the island’s zoo, founded here in 1958 by dandy and naturalist Gerald Durrell and specializing in rare and endangered animals. And if you come in autumn, you can be happy that you missed the summer: in high season a room can cost from 300 to 400 euros. Even for such a beautiful place, it’s a bit much.
Advice and information
How do you get there?
British Airways offers flights from several German airports all year round with a connection in London. If you don’t want to fly, take the car or train to Saint Malo in France (train to Paris, then take the TGV bullet train to Saint Malo) and from there take the ferry in about 1.5 hours (condorferries.co.uk).
Where is a good place to live?
In the capital of the island, Saint Helier, for example, in the four-star hotel “Pomme d’Or”, where Victor Hugo once lived, double rooms cost from 100 euros, seymourhotels.com/pomme-dor-hotel/. Just outside Saint Aubin with a splendid view of the bay of Saint-Aubin is the boutique hotel “Cristina”, double rooms starting from 130 euros, cristinajersey.com (Winter break from 19 October).
One of the most beautiful accommodations in Jersey: the luxurious “Longueville Manor” in the hinterland of Saint Savior, which is one of the Relais & Châteaux hotels, with park, partridges and private vegetable garden, double rooms from 240 euros, longuevillemanor .com. Spacious and stylishly furnished spa, located directly on the sea in Saint Brelade: “St. Brelade’s Bay Hotel”, double room from 164 euros, stbreladesbayhotel.com. The historic watchtowers and other towers can be booked through Jersey Heritage, from €20 per person per night, jerseyheritage.org/stay/heritage-lets/.
Learn more
Visit Jersey: jersey.com; visitchannelislands.com
Participation in the trip was supported by Visit Jersey. Our standards of transparency and journalistic independence can be found at go2.as/unabhaengigkeit
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