Explore Hardelot-Plage & Château d’Hardelot

Beaches, bunkers,  châteaux and Shakespeare – you’ll discover them all on this delightful escape to Northern France. 

Why visit Hardelot-Plage?

An elegant gem on the Opal Coast, the seaside resort of Hardelot-Plage offers everything a beach-loving family could ask for. The beach itself – long, wide, sandy – is exquisite. The beach is home to an array of different water sports, from sailing to windsurfing, sand yachting to kite surfing – while the town itself has plenty of shops, restaurants and facilities. The château is the town’s other main attraction – a unique place to visit with a distinctly British influence. 

Driving to Hardelot-Plage from Calais

Hardelot-Plage is only 28 miles (45km) from the LeShuttle terminal at Calais, and just a 40 minute drive down the A16! You won’t pay tolls on this route as it’s such a short journey. For a more scenic drive, why not pootle along the D940 coast road, taking you through the pretty seaside village of Wissant, another jewel of the Opal Coast? 

Sand yachting is one of the many sports to try at Hardelot-Plage

A perfect day in Hardelot-Plage – an itinerary

•    Start the day with a dip in the sea 

•    Play 9 holes of golf at the Hardelot Dunes course (you may as well, you had room to pack the clubs in the car with LeShuttle!)

•    Go for lunch at the Golf des Dunes restaurant 

•    In the afternoon take a guided tour of Château d’Hardelot and walk in the nature reserve

•    Grab an Italian dinner at La Famiglia restaurant near the beach 

•    Watch a production at the Elizabethan theatre in the grounds of Château d’Hardelot

The history of Hardelot-Plage

There is a chic feel to Hardelot-Plage, a legacy of its history as a town built more or less by one Englishman, John Robinson Whitley, in the early 20th century. Whitley bought Château d’Hardelot in 1897 and saw the potential of the area as a seaside resort. This was at the height of the Edwardian sea bathing boom, and the villas and landscaped homes of Hardelot-Plage are evidence of a time when the British gentry flocked here. As the years passed the resort retained its fashionable status, and the Château became the social hub of this Anglo-French community. 

Where is Hardelot-Plage located?

Hardelot-Plage is located on the Opal Coast in Hauts-de-France, around 8 miles/13km south of Boulogne-sur-Mer, and 13 miles/21 km north of Le Touquet-Paris-Plage. 

Things to do in Hardelot-Plage

The signature beach huts of Hardelot-Plage

Unwind on the beach

The moment you see the sky blue and white stripes of the beach huts you know Hardelot-Plage is going to be somewhere a little different. There’s a refined air here, and families have plenty of space to relax on the sands on long summer days. There is a kid’s beach club during the summer, offering a range of activities, and the beach has an official family friendly designation. On days when the wind gets up there’s always likely to be some sand yachters out racing. You’ll also see horse riders on the beach. A walk along the dunes links up with the coastal path, and gives stunning sea views. Truly, who needs the south of France when you have Hardelot-Plage on your doorstep? 

Tee off in a golfer’s paradise

The beach is not the only attraction at Hardelot-Plage. The two 18-hole golf courses of Golf d’Hardelot offer a stern challenge of any amateur golfer’s skill. Les Pins is the championship course set amid pine trees, woodland and lakes; Les Dunes is the newer course, winding through dunes and undulating valleys. These courses are on a par with anything else you’ll find on a golfing tour of Northern France.

Take your pick from two 18-hole golf courses 

Things to do at Château d’Hardelot

Explore the Victorian mansion

Château d’Hardelot is quite unlike most French chateaux. This neo-Tudor castle was  built in 1870 by a retired British soldier, Henry Guy, and then acquired by John Robinson Whitley as he developed the resort of Hardelot in his somewhat unique style. The castle was the resort’s clubhouse and golfers used to tee off from one of the castle’s towers onto the original 9-hole course! The house itself is an interesting mix of British and French interior styles, designed to symbolise the ‘Entente Cordiale’ between the two countries in the late Victorian era. 

There are guided tours of Château d’Hardelot at weekends, giving an insight into what the house was built to represent, and explaining more about the furniture and works of art – some of which are loaned from the Louvre in Paris.

Château d’Hardelot – an English castle on the French coast. Olivier Duquesne, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Watch a show in the Elizabethan theatre

Another nod to the Englishness of Château d’Hardelot is the circular theatre, the only Elizabethan style theatre in France. It is built in modern sustainable bamboo and blends discreetly into the grounds of the castle. Inside it has the atmosphere of the Globe on the South Bank, and you’ll see Shakespeare productions regularly here. Opening night in the summer of 2016 had more than a certain sense of Anglo-French solidarity to it – it happened to be the day after the UK voted to leave the European Union.  

Visit the exhibition hall

The Cultural Centre of the Entente Cordiale opened in the castle in 2009 with the purpose of strengthening the cultural ties between France and the UK. The centre hosts a range of visual arts exhibitions, musical concerts and cinema screenings, all with a British cultural theme. In recent years it has staged photographic exhibitions about the late Queen Elizabeth II, the British Jazz Festival and an open air summer festival of music and theatre. 

Wander through the gardens and discover the Condette Marsh Regional Nature Reserve

The gardens of Château d’Hardelot. Arie M. den Toom, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

As you may expect, the landscaped gardens that surround the castle are inspired by French and English styles, and feature an English rose garden and several romantic wild flower areas. The gardens are merely the entry point to the Condette Marsh Regional Nature Reserve – walk from the gardens down to the Lake of Mirrors, a marshy haven for herons, frogs and dragonflies, and then around the 35-hectare reserve. It’s an oasis of calm, a lovely place to walk and cycle on trails that lead to and from the castle. 

Your coastal adventure awaits! Book your trip with LeShuttle

Those blue and white beach huts are less than two hours away from Folkestone! Pack everything you need, golf clubs and all, and take the 35-minute crossing to Calais.