Cap Blanc-Nez and Cap Gris-Nez

Getting there

The two capes are on the D940, the coast road that from Calais passes through Sangatte, climbs to the Blanc-Nez, goes down to Escalles and Wissant and climbs again towards the Gris-Nez and Audresselles. You do them one after the other, moving the motorhome from one car park to the next during the day, and in the evening to Wissant.

• At the Blanc-Nez there is a free car park at the top, on the D940, which leads straight to the obelisk: on fine days it fills up early. Further down, at the end of rue de la Mer in Escalles, is the free car park of the Cran d'Escalles, where however some of the spaces are limited to a height of 2.10 metres
• You cannot sleep at the capes: they have been a classified site since 1987, where camping and overnight stays in motorhomes are forbidden, and on several car parks the Grand Site has put up wooden height barriers 2.10 metres high precisely to stop overnight stays. For the night there is the Wissant stopover, between the two capes; the Calais page also gives the municipal campsite of Wissant and the stopover at the Ferme de l'Horloge, in Tardinghen
• By bus from Calais: in high season line 5 is run with the Div'in, the open-top double-decker bus, free of charge, which gets from Calais-Ville station to Cap Blanc-Nez in about thirty-five minutes. The tourist office recommends it precisely so that you do not have to look for a space at the top on crowded days. Line 505, from Calais to Boulogne, stops at the Maison du Site, at the Maison Site - Musée stop
• By bicycle: the Vélomaritime runs for twenty-five kilometres inside the Grand Site, and bicycles can be hired at the Maison du Site. Bicycles are not allowed on the paths of the two capes

Practical information

A whole day, with the two capes, a walking loop and the Batterie Todt. Those who have only half a day do the two short viewpoints, the one at the obelisk and the one at the tip of the Gris-Nez, moving the motorhome from one to the other.

Contacts

Where it is

Côte d'Opale, fra Escalles e Audinghen · Hauts-de-France

You set off from

Notes

• Cap Blanc-Nez: the white chalk cliff 134 metres high, a natural area of 336 hectares managed by Eden 62, the département's body for natural areas. Gulls, fulmars and kittiwakes nest on the cliff faces; wild orchids grow in the chalk grasslands, and around Mont d'Hubert you can still see the craters of the British bombs of the Second World War. Every year, from May to October, six hundred sheep of the Boulonnais breed graze the slopes with their shepherdess, to keep them clear
• The Dover Patrol obelisk, on the highest point of the cape: it commemorates the Dover Patrol, the Franco-British fleet that in the First World War kept the strait between the two allies open, laying and clearing mines, escorting ships and barring the way to submarines. Marshal Foch laid the first stone on 26 January 1920, and it was unveiled on 20 July 1922; German sappers blew it up on 7 July 1944, and it was rebuilt in 1962. A twin obelisk stands opposite, on the English coast, at St Margaret's at Cliffe. From the car park a seven hundred metre path, wheelchair accessible, leads to the obelisk and the viewpoint, with the panorama all around, among the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall
• From the top you can watch the ferries between Calais and Dover and the merchant ships in the strait go by, and on clear days the white cliffs of England. The edge of the cliff can give way: it retreats on average by twenty centimetres a year, so keep to the marked paths, away from the edge
• The Cran d'Escalles: from the top a marked path goes down to the Cran d'Escalles, a narrow beach of pebbles and sand between the cliffs, with the Blanc-Nez above your head. At high tide the beach disappears completely: go down with the tide times in your pocket. From here the GR 120 continues towards the Gris-Nez
• The Blanc-Nez loops: the Balcons d'Escalles, seven and a half kilometres and two hours, start from the place de la Mairie in Escalles, climb through the hamlet of Haute-Escalles to Mont d'Hubert, cross the D940, reach the obelisk and return along the cliff, well back from the edge, to the Cran d'Escalles and into the village by rue de la Mer. The Hauts de Sangatte, seven and a half kilometres, between two and a half and three and a half hours, start from the Hubert Latham car park on the way out of Sangatte and pass the turquoise lake of the Fond Pignon, made with the chalk dug out for the Channel Tunnel. For families there is the Cap Blanc-Nez loop, four and a half kilometres long
• The bay of Wissant: between the two capes the coast drops into a great bay of sand and dunes. Wissant, in the middle, was a fishing village, with the flobarts, the beach boats, and today, because of the wind, it is one of the best-known places in Europe for windsurfing and kitesurfing. At Tardinghen, further on, there are the marais, the marsh behind the dunes, the Châtelet beach, where at low tide you can see the wreck of the Lord Grey, and the sentier des Berniques, eight kilometres long. At the end of April blackthorn and broom flower above the marais
• Cap Gris-Nez: the cliff of sandstone and marl, about fifty metres high, with the lighthouse at the top and the boulders below, where seals can sometimes be seen. It is a place of European renown for watching migrating birds. The headland was laid out in 2008 for about a million visitors a year, and is wheelchair accessible: the viewpoint path, seven hundred metres long, looks out over the strait, the bay of Wissant and the Blanc-Nez in the distance. In May the edge of the cliff flowers with sea thrift, pink, and sheep can be seen grazing in the meadows
• The Maison du Site des Deux-Caps, in the Haringzelle farm at Audinghen, is the Grand Site's visitor centre: the Entre Terre et Mer exhibition, with models and projections on the cliffs and the nature of the capes, the hire of bicycles, electric ones too, of tandems and of children's trailers, local produce and guided outings. It is open every day from 10:00 to 12:30 and from 14:00 to 18:00, and in July and August from 10:00 to 19:00
• The Batterie Todt and the Atlantic Wall museum, a hundred metres from the Maison du Site, in the Turm I bunker: the German battery had four 380 millimetre guns in casemates aimed at England. It fired for the first time on 20 January 1942, and on 29 September 1944 it surrendered to the 3rd Canadian Division. The museum tells the story of the life of the German soldiers, and outside stands one of the last K5 railway guns in the world. In 2026 it is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 to 18:00 and on Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00, closed on Monday, and it closes for the winter from 9 November 2026 to 12 February 2027; the ticket costs 9 euros, 6 from 7 to 14 years, 8 for students, 28 for a family. It is not accessible by wheelchair or with a pushchair, animals are not allowed in, except guide dogs, and walking poles are left at the entrance. Phone +33 9 66 91 97 33
• Audresselles, south of the Gris-Nez, is the most typical of the fishing villages of the Côte d'Opale, with low houses with coloured shutters and the last flobarts. The fishermen catch lobster and crab
• The beer of the two capes: the Brasserie des 2 Caps, in a restored farm in Tardinghen, at 1413 route d'Ausques, offers tours of the brewery with a tasting on Friday at 11:00, an hour and a half; phone +33 3 21 10 56 53. The brewery does not publish the price of the tour
• The rules of the capes: dogs on a lead are allowed, bicycles on the paths are not; do not pick plants, and take your rubbish away with you. Keep to the marked paths, because the chalk grasslands and the dunes are fragile, and check the tides before going down to the beaches and the rocks
• Between late April and early May 2027: the northern schools, zone B, are on holiday until 2 May, and the car parks are busy; 1 May is a public holiday. In May the sea thrift begins to flower at the Gris-Nez and the sheep begin to graze at the Blanc-Nez, and in 2027 the Deux-Caps Photos Festival returns, which every two years puts photographs in the open air between the two capes. The Batterie Todt museum is closed on Monday. On Friday evenings, from April to September, Wissant has its market, from 18:00 to 21:00

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