Travel Stories - France

"montreuil-sur-Mer"

introduction

We are not standing so long still (to lift) when a car pulls by and a man opens his window and starts to talk to us. He’s indicating that he first has to eat something at the restaurant behind us but afterwards he wants to take us with him. With a reassured heart we try to find another person but the man is already done and waiting in front of us. He informs us that he certainly wants to take us to Montreuil but that he first has to drive past his sister. We agree and put our bags in the trunk.

Fort Montreuil sur Mer

We drive along small farm roads and wait in the car while the French man rings at the farm's sister door and delivers some things. Before we know it we are on our way again to Montreuil. At two o’clock in the afternoon he drops us down at the bottom of the hill in our destination. We walk up and it turns out that is the acutal “Fort Montreuil sur Mer”, which is no longer on the sea, which has been built on a decent steep plateau. We pass under a gate and it appears that the entire city wall is still standing here what is quite a positive surprise. On the former fortifications a wonderful walkway has been built with a magnificent view over the entire region. After walking three quarters of the fortress, we walk into the center which is within the city walls to do some shopping.

While we relax on a terrace with a well-deserved ice-cold beer on the immense large square, we wonder which person is depicted. We conclude it must be Victor Hugo who wrote his first scenes from the world famous "Les Miserables" here. It turns out to be the English marshal "Haig" on a horse. Parts of the square have already been deposited; tomorrow a show is organized in honor of the most beautiful villages in France - Montreuil has a good chance for winning this challenge. The sun drops as soon as we go to the 16th century citadel (again built by "Vauban"); we are just too late to enter the fort. We don’t really care; we have seen enough "Vauban" forts in France. The houses and buildings in this upper town are exceptional - dilapidated and beautiful. Fortunately, there are not many tourists yet. For us it's time to find a place to sleep for the night.

swampy time

We walk out of the upper city, past the train station and then towards the spot where we saw a lot of large trees this afternoon (from the fortress). What seemed so good from above is suddenly not so tempting anymore. It is indeed a fairly large forest but it is surrounded and cut through by numerous ditches and waterways. Places are or impenetrable by vegetation or it is very swampy. We find a place that is slightly better than the rest; we have to cut down a lot of swampy greenery to make way for a place for our two tents. The result is that I almost choke due to my hay fever. If our tents are standing and we want to eat, the second disadvantage of this place occurs – the present of many mosquitoes! We do not have the third drawback of this place until we are quite on our way with our meal; it turns out the trees are crying here; despite the fact that it has been dry for hours, a kind of thick sticky water comes from the trees which comes down on our tents and on us. Despite this, we stay in front of our tents for a long time because we can’t go anywhere anymore.

tips & advice (2016)

Montreuil sur Mer has a small train station which is located at the bottom of the "upper city" in the valley. Unfortunately, there is no bus station.

Montreuil sur Mer - Hesdin: there are a few buses (number 515) a day to Hesdin. This bus stops at the busstop on the large central square, the upper town and at a stop at the bottom of the hill in the lower town. This takes half an hour and costs 1 euro. There is certainly one at 13:45.