Hotels Near Calais

 HOTELS OF EUROPE                                                              Mike Fishwick

Northern France – handy for Channel ports, with plenty to see

Calais

With the closure of our old favourite, the Hotel de Relais in Ardes, we now use the Hotel IBIS Centre in Calais.  While they may be considered by some as lacking in character, IBIS hotels offer a predictable combination of clean modern rooms and good restaurants, with safe parking. 

There are now several variations on the IBIS theme, the cheaper ‘Budget’ not having a restaurant (but often being adjacent to a standard IBIS) and the ‘Styles’ being more expensive. Certain of them are over-priced, the IBIS in Roscoff being a good example.

Like the majority, the Calais Centre hotel can be booked early on the internet for £50 per night – or £73 if you walk in off the street!  We usually spend about £20 each for the evening meal with wine, and the generous buffet breakfast is £7.75 each.

The Calais area is a perfect base for exploring some of the area’s WW2 legacy, such as the little-known V3, the world’s first supergun.  Return to the roundabout below the A16, and take the D943 road towards St. Omer through Pont-de Ardres to Ardres.  Turn right at the traffic lights and follow the road to Landrethun-le-Nord.  Bear right into the village, cross the next road, and follow the signs to the entrance, about a mile further on.  The site is also signed from the A16 J36 (between Calais and Boulogne) near Marquise.

The V3’s thirty 150 mm guns, with 100 metre-long barrels, could have rained fire all over London and the south-east, but it was crippled by a visit from the RAF with ‘Earthquake’ bombs, leaving 1,400 workers (mostly slave labourers) entombed in the flooded lower levels.  Even today, the 600 metre long tunnels provide an eerie  experience.

An even more impressive piece of German concrete work can be seen by continuing on the D943 towards St-Omer, and turning left about a mile after Nordausques, at the sign for the ‘Blockhaus d’Eperleques,’  which was built as an ‘impregnable’  V2 missile launching site.  This mighty structure is best seen before spring, when the trees begin to hide it again.  This is the second such building, the original structure having been bombed just after the masses of concrete were poured into miles of shuttering.  The resultant lump of concrete can still be seen.

Undismayed (well, not much!) the Germans had a seven metre-deep pit dug, one hundred metres square, and filled with reinforced concrete. Tunnels were then driven under the slab, which was jacked up as the walls were built in safety beneath it.  The massive structure remains the largest such building in the world, but was never used in its designed role, as by then the railways were destroyed and no missiles could reach it from their factory in central Germany’s Harz Mountains.  The V2 was designed as a mobile-launched weapon anyway, but that is another story.

A little further south, and best reached by following the signs from A16 J4 is La Coupole, another V2 bunker.  This takes the form of a massive concrete dome on the edge of a quarry, which is now the car park.  Access is through one of the old railway tunnels, then by a lift to the area beneath  the dome, where two cinemas and  a museum tell the intertwined stories of rocket development and the impact of the occupation on the Pas-de-Calais area.

If your schedule permits a journey between Calais and the Amiens area, and you prefer a rather more up-market hotel, then the Hotel au Cardinal may be for you.  This is a modern hotel in an old shell, set in the square at Poix-le-Picardie, a small town some twenty miles to the south-west of Amiens.  There is also an excellent campsite within two hundred metres.

Hotel au Cardinal, Poix-le-Picardie

Poix is easy to reach from either the D1029, or the A29 autoroute Sortie 13, both of which run north of the town, and by driving north to join the A16 near Abbeville it is only two hours from Calais.

The rooms are excellent, as is the restaurant, which offers a wide range of menus.  Parking is in the street outside, or by the adjacent war memorial, but no problems are likely to be encountered.

Double rooms are priced  at 60 Euro, with breakfast at 6 Euro each, and we usually spend another 60 Euro on the evening meal and wine.

Thanks to the new autoroute around Amiens, Poix is a good base for visiting the WW1 Somme battlefield, with its many monuments and graves, on both sides of the D929 between Albert and Bapaume.  It is said that this battle touched every family in Britain, and many in the British Empire, the battlefield remaining a fascinating and thought-provoking area to visit.  In particular, see Albert cathedral, the massive Thiepval monument to the missing British dead (signed from Pozières) and that village’s huge military cemetery.

Hotel IBIS and IBIS Budget, Laon

Those travelling between Calais and eastern France, or western Germany, often find accommodation in the country towns and villages from Verdun northwards to be in short supply.  After a few unrewarding excursions from the autoroute disillusionment often sets in, resulting in a decision to press on.  At this stage, coupled with the usual limited signposting on les autoroutes, it is all too easy to miss the A26 Sortie 13 exit to Laon, where hotels for all tastes can be found.

From the autoroute follow the signs for Soissons to a three-lane section, and exit at the sign for ‘Ile de France,’ just before the ‘Carrefour’ hypermarket.  Turn right at the end of the slip road, and right again into the Hotel IBIS Budget car park, which is behind the Hotel IBIS.  Although close to the main road, the area is not unduly noisy, particularly if you can get a room at the back of the hotel.  The local campsite is signposted a little further along the main road.

 Hotel IBIS Budget, Laon

Laon, known as the ‘Crowned Mountain’ boasts what many consider to be the finest cathedral in France, an unusual lace-like structure built with eight towers, which was due to be demolished after the Revolution.  During the demolition of the first tower a stonemason fell to his death, it then being decided that God – although officially banned – had decided that He did not wish the work to continue, so saving this fine building for posterity!

Laon is about two and a half hours from Calais, and is a handy stopping point whether you are coming or going. It is also a good base for exploring the British WW1 area.

The grandstands and pits of the old French GP Circuit at Reims are only half an hour away outide Reims -  follow the A26 to its end, and join the A4 towards Metz and Verdun.  Take the first exit (immediately after joining) pass under the autoroute, through the first roundabout, and the fourth exit at the next one.

Hotel IBIS Senlis

Senlis is an ideal base for exploring the sector between the west and south-west of Soissons contains the chateaux of Compiègne (home of Napoleon I) and Chantilly (home of the Prince de Condé), le Clairièr de l’Armistice (with the railway carriage in which the Germans surrendered in 1918, and the French likewise in 1940 - but it is actually a reproduction) the massive castle of Pierrefonds (built for Napoleon III) and even the excellent French national aircraft museum at le Bourget airport, in the northern suburbs of Paris. (head for Senlis, then follow the D1017 southwards into the museum car park). 

The IBIS is on the outskirts of town, just after leaving the A1.  Head into town, and the hotel on your left just after the junction.  If in doubt, continue towards the town centre and turn round.

These hotels may be on your way home, but that is no excuse to neglect the massive amount of history in northern France, which has been fought over for centuries, and still bears the interesting scars.

Hotel au Cardinal          

Place de la Republique     

80290 Poix-le-Picardie

Tel:  03.22.46.05.26

Hotel IBIS Budget        (Use ACCOR hotel website)    

Avenue Georges-Pompidou      

ZAC Ile-de-France                         

02200 Laon                                

Tel: 03.23.20.36.37