We stayed here for a couple of nights en route back to England after staying in a Eurocamp further South. It was just the perfect little base to break up that journey and have an explore of the region before heading to the ferry home.
We had a lovely welcome. The owners live in the same building just a few doors down from the gite, and Dominique was there to show us around. She spoke good English and had left out some fresh eggs, apples and vegetables for us which was really nice. We didn't need much, but if we did they were just on hand and approachable.
Our three year old son just adored staying right on the farm and was constantly out looking at the animals. The chickens and ducks basically roam free everywhere, and they have stables for 5 horses that they train for showjumping / dressage. There is also a shetland pony, a donkey, three dogs and a bunch of cats too!
In the morning they kindly took our boy around the farm to feed all of the animals. He absolutely loved this, especially as he got to pick eggs from the chickens and keep them. They even offered to let him do horse riding on the Saturday, but sadly our ferry was early that day so we had to decline. It is fantastic that for the cheap price of this gite you could get feeding animals and horse riding thrown in for free!
The gite itself was nice, although a bit rough around the edges. You can tell it had been well lived in, the shower was powerful and water hot, the bedrooms were nice and our baby's cot had been given extra padding which we appreciated after the cot at Eurocamp was not and we knew our baby didn't sleep well there because of it.
It wasn't luxury by any means, but it wasn't shabby either. It kind of felt like we were staying at a French relatives home, and they had put us up for the weekend. It was that kind of feel, rather than anything too polished.
There were a few minor things that weren't great, such as the toilet being very noisy, the floorboards very creaky upstairs and the dishwasher having full set of mould covered plates in it when we opened it, but we were so in love with everything else, and of the hospitality of the owners that we would definitely stay again. We just whacked the dishwasher on a couple of times so that it was clean and carried on.
The location was great for the ferries. About 30 mins to Dunkirk or Calais (we did Dunkirk). The local town of Ardres is really nice and there is a lake there you can visit with boat hire and cafes. There is a kids park called Eurolac we wanted to go to but it was shut the day we went as out of season.
We also drove half an hour to the seaside resort of Wissant, which is really beautiful and a bit further down the coast to Boulogne where we did the big aquarium there, well worth a visit.
All in all we just want to say thank you to Dominique and her family for the warm welcome and we hope to see them again in the future.