Tourist information -
Dieppe
Crowded between high cliff headlands, Dieppe is
an enjoyably small-scale port that used to be more of a resort.
During the nineteenth century, Parisians came here by train to take
the sea air, promenading along the front while the English colony
indulged in the peculiar pastime of swimming. These days, it's not
a place many travellers go out of their way to visit, but it's one
of the nicer ferry ports in northern France, and you're unlikely
to regret to spending an afternoon or evening here before or after
a Channel crossing. With kids in tow, the aquariums of the Cité
de la Mer are the obvious attraction; otherwise, you could settle
for admiring the cliffs and the castle as you stroll the extravagant
seafront lawns. Meanwhile, the business of the port goes on as ever,
with Dieppe's commercial docks unloading half the bananas of the
Antilles and forty percent of all shellfish destined to slither
down French throats. The markets sell fish right off the boats,
displayed with the usual Gallic flair, and the sole, scallops and
turbot available in profusion at the restaurants may well tempt
you to stay.
Modern Dieppe is still laid out along the three axes dictated by
its eighteenth-century town planners, though these central streets
have become a little run-down, and are in any case left in continual
shadow. The boulevard de Verdun runs for over a kilometre along
the seafront, from the fifteenth-century castle in the west to the
port entrance, and passes the Casino, along with the grandest and
oldest hotels. A short way inland, parallel to the seafront, is
the rue de la Barre and its pedestrianized continuation, the Grande
Rue . Along the harbour's edge, an extension of the Grande Rue,
quai Henry IV has a colourful backdrop of cafés, brasseries
and restaurants.
The place du Puits Salé , dominated by the huge Café
des Tribunaux , is at the centre of the old town. Currently looking
very spruce following a lavish restoration, the café was
built as an inn towards the end of the seventeenth century, and
briefly became Dieppe's town hall after the previous one was bombarded
by the British in 1694. In the late nineteenth century, it was favoured
by painters and writers such as Renoir, Monet, Sickert, Whistler
and Pissarro. For English visitors, its most evocative association
is with the exiled and unhappy Oscar Wilde, who drank here regularly.
It's now a cavernous café, the haunt of college students
and open until after midnight.
|
