July 2026
The last of the three northern French cities I visited (the others were Boulogne and Dunkerque
Since trains in France now cost a fortune, we decided to take the TGV to Fretan—the station is in the middle of a field
We followed the crowd
And it turns out that everyone, down to the very last person, has a car
A 15-minute walk to the bus stop. We waited a little over an hour
We had to take an official taxi from the station. An “official” taxi—it was just some woman’s phone number :) 30 euros to the city center
Out of sadness, I ate a Welsh —the biggest and fattest mistake of my life (in northern France, absolutely everyone is fat)
You can tell the city is poor, but it’s trying
There are a lot of cars, but not much public transportation
Sometimes the sidewalks look like this
It looks like Dunkirk
A bit depressing
We visited the lace museum
This is it—it’s very interesting; the techniques haven’t changed in a very long time
The museum’s highlights
And even holograms
Downtown
Heading toward the sea
It looks a little dirty, with ferries floating by
But it’s fine in the summer
Northern landscapes, but warm
The party of the year—a youth gathering with a DJ
Exactly zero people were dancing :)
A playground with buoys—pretty cool
The whole city in one photo—if you know French, you’ll have fun
The city itself isn’t really worth visiting, but the nature…
There’s a free bus (a couple of times a day) that goes there, with the most fitting stop names
UNESCO Parking
And off we go, to the reason we started this whole thing:
By the way, I saw some flax—google where it’s mainly harvested
The bus is totally awesome—it even has a sunroof
Rodin worked here
And not only him
City Hall is open
A pen chained to the table. I’m home
You can also judge the quality of a French city by the quality of its local baguettes—here it's not good
Street signs
Cool roof tiles on the walls (the weather here is pretty interesting outside of summer)
Figurines, just like in Nantes
In short, it’s not bad by the water in the summer—there are modern amenities
There’s also some work by Banksy (I still don’t know who he is)
It’s just a city, but it’s worth a stroll