Wimereux
| Wimereux | ||
|---|---|---|
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| region | Hauts-de-France | |
| Department | Pas-de-Calais | |
| Arrondissement | Boulogne-sur-Mer | |
| Canton | Boulogne-sur-Mer-1 | |
| Community association | Boulonnais | |
| Coordinates | 50 ° 46 ′ N , 1 ° 37 ′ E | |
| height | 0-71 m | |
| surface | 7.71 km 2 | |
| Residents | 6,575 (January 1, 2017) | |
| Population density | 853 inhabitants / km 2 | |
| Post Code | 62930 | |
| INSEE code | 62893 | |
| Website | http://www.ville-wimereux.fr/ | |
 Waterfront |
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Wimereux (Dutch: Wimereeuw ) is a French municipality and a seaside resort with 6575 inhabitants (at January 1, 2017) near Boulogne-sur-Mer in the department of Pas-de-Calais in the region of Hauts-de-France .
location
Wimereux is located at the mouth of the Wimereux river of the same name in the English Channel. Boulogne-sur-Mer is about seven kilometers south and Calais about 35 km north of the town. The municipality is part of the Caps et Marais d'Opale Regional Nature Park .
climate
Wimereux has favorable weather conditions; the thermometer hardly drops below zero for seven days in winter. In 2008/09 the lowest temperature was minus 2.1 degrees Celsius. It snows an average of half a day a year.
history
On August 8, 1806, Napoléon ordered a port and the first townhouses for the military to be built in the mouth of the Wimereux. With the collapse of the Napoleonic Empire, however, the place was abandoned. It came back to life in the middle of the 19th century , initially as part of the Wimille community . With the emergence of spa tourism, the first beach café was built in 1853, the first chalet in 1856 and soon afterwards the first hotels. In 1862 the construction of the railway line from Boulogne to Calais began. In 1865 the municipal council of Wimille decided to build a church, and in 1866 the first two companies settled in the area. On January 1, 1867, the first train finally stopped at the station near the new settlement.
In 1891 the Pont Napoléon road bridge was built over the river. The Fin de Siècle brought with it a building boom: in 1892 there were 150 villas in the village, in 1896 there were already 250 and in 1899 there were 328 villas. In that year Wimereux became independent as a municipality. Also in the same year, the first radio signal sent over the English Channel by Guglielmo Marconi from the South Foreland Lighthouse near Dover was received in Wimereux. In 1914 there were 50 hotels and pensions and 800 villas on the site.
During the First World War , the British Army took the whole place as a military hospital , and in 1917 there were ten military hospitals here. The local cemetery has nearly 3,000 graves of military personnel, including that of John McCrae , the poet of In Flanders Fields . After the cemetery in Wimereux ran out of space, from 1918 more than 4,200 victims were buried in the Terlincthun British Cemetery, which was specially created for this purpose, near the village of Terlincthun below Wimille.
After the war, growth continued from 1920. The beach promenade was opened in 1927. In the crisis of the 1930s there were no English guests; thanks to the loyalty of French customers, the place was able to hold up.
The casino, half of the 17 grand hotels, 14 guest houses and numerous villas were destroyed in the Second World War . The German Wehrmacht maintained an observation post between Wimereux and Boulogne-sur-Mer, and various concrete structures were built within the framework of the Atlantic Wall . At times, the place was the operative quarters of the leader of the speedboats that operated in the English Channel . Even today, a submarine dock from this time is visible at low tide .
After the war, Wimereux recovered only slowly, but then developed again into a popular seaside resort. In 1998 the beach promenade was renovated.
Leisure and Tourism
Beach
The flat beach consists of gray, firm sand mud flats , interrupted by isolated flat rock formations. At low tide , the beach is several hundred meters wide and generally child-friendly. In some places, however, there is a risk of being trapped in the rapidly rising tide . At spring tide the water reaches the paved promenade and the beach disappears under the water. If there is a strong wind, the surf beats over the parapet.
There is dark silt beneath the sand layer, which is just a few centimeters thick. Numerous lugworm heaps testify to the abundance of nutrients in this soil. On the rocks there are barnacles , mussels and limpets, and in the pools there are hermit crabs , edible crabs and small shrimp . Processions of small snails move through the pools and damp sand at low tide.
Sports
In the Club Nautique de Wimereux (CNW) you can practice sailing with the optimist and the catamaran and learn in courses, as well as windsurfing , kite surfing , sand sailing , kayak paddling and stand-up paddling . Several internationally known athletes have emerged from the club, including Pascal Maka and Jules Denel .
Wimereux has one of the oldest golf courses in France with 18 holes.
hikes
In a northerly direction, a varied hike leads through the meadows above the cliffs and through the Slack dunes to the next town of Ambleteuse and on via Audresselles to Cap Gris-Nez . At low tide you can start the hike down on the beach instead of taking the high path.
The path to the south offers a view of the beach and the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer, but leads mostly along the road, as the path over the cliffs is currently (summer 2015) largely closed.
Partnerships
-
Herne Bay , UK. -
Schmallenberg , Germany.
Villa Le bon accueil
Market on rue Carnot
Beach
Estuary
Bunker north of the village
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ De Nederlanden in Frankrijk, Jozef van Overstraeten, 1969
- ↑ a b c d e f Histoire ( Memento of November 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), website of the municipality, accessed on August 8, 2016
- ↑ Ian Poole: Guglielmo Marconi - short biography of his life , Radio-Electronics.com, accessed on August 8, 2015
- ^ Paths of Remembrance: Wimereux Communal Cemetery , accessed June 16, 2014
- ↑ way of reminder, Terlincthun British Cemetery , accessed on June 16, 2014
- ↑ World War II: TERLINCTHUN BRITISH CEMETERY ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed June 16, 2014
- ↑ Warning sign on site
- ^ Website of the Club Nautique de Wimereux , accessed on August 8, 2015
