Little pieces of France cast into the sea and picked up by England.” So said Victor Hugo of the Channel Islands - and he knew them well, having spent 14 years living on Guernsey after political exile from France in the 1850s.
The great French poet and novelist loved the island with a passion. His idiosyncratic house in St Peter Port, with its exotic interior, is owned by the City of Paris and staffed by French museum attendants, and Guernsey pays a fulsome tribute to him in September* when it stages the Victor Hugo International Music Festival, with a classical programme that features songs inspired by Hugo’s poems written by contemporary French composer Guillaume Connesson.
Hugo wasn’t the only French luminary who was captivated by Guernsey. Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted 15 Impressionist canvasses at Moulin Huet, the pretty south coast bay that fired his imagination with its ‘shimmering light’.
It’s hardly surprising that there’s a Gallic twist to Guernsey. It’s only 27 miles from the coast of France, after all, and some of its people have been speaking a version of Norman French since the Battle of Hastings. You don’t hear Guernesiaise spoken freely on the streets, but you might well discover a pub or two where the elderly locals still converse in their familiar-but-different tongue.
Everywhere you go, there are family and place names that originate from the French side of the Channel. Even the narrow, leafy lanes - a unique characteristic of the island where horse-riders and pedestrians have the right of way and cars are restricted to 15 miles an hour - are known as ‘Ruettes Tranquilles’.
St Peter Port harbour has become a favourite for visiting yachtsmen who sail over from St Malo or Cherbourg to have lunch or dinner at one of the town’s many French-flavoured bistros, where, “la bonne cuisine” is the order of the day. Utterly French!
Reassuringly though, English cream teas, crab sandwiches and real ale are all local specialities. … yet the post boxes are blue. Something has to be different!
In 1204 Guernsey had a choice: maintain an allegiance to Normandy or side with England. Guernsey chose England. More than a century after Victor Hugo’s words, this ‘little piece of France’, the Island still has many desirable ingredients of La Belle France.
It’s a unique blend to savour.
* The Victor Hugo International Music Festival is being held between September 19-28, 2008. More information at www.vhfestival.com.
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