Wissant sits in the middle of the only stretch of French coast that looks England in the eye — the bay curves for four kilometres between Cap Blanc-Nez to the north-east and Cap Gris-Nez to the south-west, and on a clear day the white cliffs on the far side of the Channel are plainly visible. The sand is firm, pale and enormous at low tide, and the wind almost never stops.
That wind is the point. Wissant is where the Opal Coast comes to sail things: kitesurfers off the main beach, wingfoilers further along, surfers when a north-westerly swell wraps into the bay, and sand-yachts on the hard flats at low water. The village behind is small and unpretentious — a square, a church, a handful of cafés and friteries, and the flobart fishing boats that give the main street its name.
It is not a resort in the way Le Touquet is. There is no casino and no seafront apartment blocks; the appeal is the space and the weather, and the fact that the two capes on either side are protected as a Grand Site de France, with cliff paths running out to both headlands.