Before moooving on to my next major trip collection, allow me to clear out some old trip photos that I never got around to posting about. This one will have cows in it, if you hadn't gathered that from my title and my careful play on words above.
Mers les Bains isn't a major travel location or a "must see" destination by any means. It's more of a place to go if you've been everywhere else in France or a place you go if you live in the country and are looking for something new and a little less touristy. This is just my opinion of course, locals may tell you otherwise.
It's located along the West coast of the country and shares the same chalk cliffs as the towns of Étretat and Fécamp.
It's actually very similar to both of those locations but maybe not quite as scenic and beautiful as either of them. Maybe it was just the weather we experienced that day?
On the plus side, its also not as busy as either of the other two locations and often times, less people (especially tourists) can be a good thing.
Then again, maybe the lack of people was also due to the time of year that we were there?
Anyway, my wife and I visited the city in the early spring of 2020 (or maybe 2021?). As you can see it was a bit cloudy and grey that day, which could also be a reason that I didn't care for the site as much as the other two towns I keep referring to. Often weather makes a huge difference for travel vacations.
During our visit we hiked the top of the cliffs and during our walk we came across a few furry friends that we had to stop and say hello to.
Cows can be such friendly creatures aren't they?
Mers les Bains directly translates to "Seas the Baths" or maybe "Sea Baths" to sound a little less awkward. I'm not sure where the origin of the name comes from but if I had to guess I'd say that it has something to do with swimming in the sea.
The town itself had a resort like look and feel about it, which also alludes to the idea of it being a beach getaway location.
It had these blocks of colorful townhouses that created a vibrant colorful look to the place. They happened to be boarded up for winter but I could imagine the streets being lined with cheery party people on a hot summer day.
I got the impression that they were summer homes, Airbnb's and small Hotel rentals.
I'm guessing that the town gets pretty busy in the summer months when the weather is a bit nicer.
Perhaps this is a local Hotspot for people wanting to visit the coast without having to deal with the copious amounts of tourists at Étretat and Fécamp?
Mers les Bains also connects with another small town called Le Treport and together the two appear as one large city.
Something interesting about this is that the two cities are actually in different states as well (or cantons, regions, provinces - I forget what the country calls its different borderlines). Anyway, Le Trepprt falls on the Normandy side and Mers les Bains falls on the Picardie side. There is a sign marker to let you know that you are about to cross borders. We visited both locations that day but I didn't take any photos at all in Le Treport. Maybe that says something about it? I'll let you be the judge.
There were many similarities between the two but there was also a some differences. For instance, Le Treport definitely had a different sort of vibe to it. It felt more like a party town somehow, like a place where the younger crowd would go to drink and be loud and merry while the older mature crowd stays in Mers les Bains to sit on the beach peacefully and swim in the sea. Maybe its set up for people to party on the one side and sleep on the other? Anyway I think you get the idea of what I'm saying, two connected cities with two very different feels but each with their own appeal to their market audience. Being so close to winter when we went, there was no partying on either side. So after our hike and brief little tour we headed back home. We both agreed that the cows were the highlight that day.