France special: full sail for Europe’s coolest coastline

To kick off our France special, Griff Rhys Jones takes the helm for a wind-powered tour of the Gallic coastline

Calm seas at Porto Vecchio, Corsica (hemis.fr)

France has 3,000 miles of coastline; Britain can boast more than twice as much. We are rockier and probably more dangerous to shipping, but the French coast has French harbours and French shops and French excitements. And the French still eat better than we do. It is the lure of "abroad", and it is only about a night's sailing away.

So, yes, I have spent many days fighting the huge tides in the great French drain. I have tied up to a weed-draped wooden post in Dieppe for the night. I've fought my way around the Cotentin Peninsula. I have sat in the same spot for more than five hours on a blue, sunny, windless afternoon.

I have enjoyed wild days near Cherbourg, when the seas boiled around us and we realised that we had crossed into the sea race that had drowned some poor Plantagenet heir to the throne.

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