FRENCH SUMMER VACATION – Mers Les Bains

Yanique Francis

2 years ago

Beautiful colorful houses of the Belle Époque line the streets of this seaside town only a few hours away from Paris. Mers Les Bains has delightful little streets full of antique shops with the perfect vintage table decors and furniture, bakeries with the most decadent french pastries such as chocolate eclairs, Tarte meringue, and the usual breakfast staples of Pain au Chocolat to restaurants serving traditional french food but mostly regional seafood such as Moules Frites and Choucroute de la Mer(lots of interesting poisson de mer).

This is my 15th summer in France, and I am still excited to be discovering this wonderful country! Why didn’t someone tell me that the beaches in the north could be just as lovely as the ones in the south of France?

Yes I love sharing Paris with you – and you know you can count on the blog and Instagram for tips of the best rooftops, how to order at a French Bakery, new cool hotels, etc…

But I also love showing you how easy-to-get-aroundable France is, especially if you are visiting Paris. It all started with the TRAVEL FROM PARIS Blog post.

It’s easy to move around once you touch down in CDG airport or easy if you drive in from other parts of Europe. I was literally counting the cars and caravans with license plates hailing from the UK, Belgium, Germany, or even the Netherlands. France is a top summer destination for many other Europeans and for good reason; it’s easy to road trip or move around from one beautiful village to another.

We stayed in Mers Les Bains this week for our summer vacation.

So to be totally honest when we booked we had no idea of this region. We booked late by French standards, in July, while most french would have their vacations booked months before. We knew we were going to do a few days in Amiens, Lille, and then “somewhere” in Normandy along the beach for a few days.

So we were pretty last minute, hence not expecting to so easily find this little side of Paradise. But oh Mon Dieu!

Quelle belle surprise 🙂

Mers Les Bains is one of the 3 main little seaside towns including Eu and Treport. Our Airbnb was at Oust Marest a tiny village pretty and pretty easy to pass by it was 5min drive from everything though.

Oust Marest has about 20 people living there – I kid you not! It was perfect; cute, clean, calm, with lots of little rivers and flowers everywhere.

Our apartment was on 2 floors, the bedrooms upstairs, kitchen, living space, massive tv, strong wifi, and we had access to a garden with an outdoor dining set and barbecue grill! It was a perfect summer house.

Oh baby – I did my first ever barbecue of Jamaican-style Jerk Chicken!

Some evenings we ate really summery salads and grazed on Italian and French foods I brought from Paris and some found at the supermarket. Italian Anchohies and fresh multicolored tomatoes were delish.

Most other days we ate out at one of the restaurants at Mers Les Bains or Treport (see the map for the full list).

In Mers les Bains we esp liked LesMouettes80 – Esp. du Général Leclerc, 80350 Mers-les-Bains

In Treport we esp liked Comptoirs de l’Océan – 46 Quai François 1er, 76470 Le Tréport

Some days we would go supermarket shopping at the Auchan or Intermarche in Eu