Exploring Jersey – May 2021

To celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary we had a carefully planned trip to the Taj Mahal in India followed by some amazing trekking in Bhutan.  Instead we found ourselves outside on the covered terrace of the local pub watching the rain and eating fish and chips. 

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Anniversary dinner in the rain

There must be somewhere we can go which will let us in we thought.  The one place which seemed O.K. was Jersey.  It was somewhere we hadn’t been, a short flight and some nice hotels so we decided to give it a go.

 

A negative PCR test was required and the Jersey government contacted us each day to check how we were and a further PCR test had to be done on day 5.  Masks were required indoors.

We stayed at the Club Hotel and Spa in St. Helier, had a beautiful suite and it was home to an excellent relatively understated Michelin star restaurant called Bohemia.  It was round the corner from the main shopping centre and convenient to explore the rather charming Victorian covered market.  The weather for the first few days was awful and we didn’t wander too far afield.  We did, though, manage to find an absolutely outstanding, highly authentic, Italian restaurant called Capannina. 

Bohemia
Sign on the shop counter

 I was lucky enough to stumble across an excellent boutique and was able to while away the time with some retail therapy.  The sign on the counter said “Your husband called and said to buy whatever you want” so I did!

It was a joy to actually be out and about.  There weren’t too many tourists as a result of the pandemic and that did mean that some of the attractions we would have visited were closed.

In particular we would really have liked to tour the war tunnels.  This tells the story of what life was like in Jersey in WWII and the exhibition is housed within an underground tunnel complex, built by the Germans using slave labour.

 

One of the highlights for us was a trip to the zoo where we saw some of the world’s rarest animals and birds.  Normally I don’t like to see animals caged but these animals inhabit a 32 acre park.  This animal haven was created by Gerald Durrell as the first ever conservation – themed zoo over 60 years ago.  Our favourites had to be the gorillas and the orangutangs.  The talks were informative, funny and it was clear that the animal keepers loved their charges. 

There are some lovely beaches but the weather kept us off them.

 

A surprising discovery which outweighed expectations was meeting the Sandwizard Simon who has a stunning array of sand sculptures.  A charming, unassuming man who has been a world champion in sand sculpture, he doesn’t charge anything for visiting his sculptures and seems quite surprised when you put money in his donation box.

 

Stunning sand sculptures

An orchid garden was also worth a visit and the scenery overall was attractive and interesting

Beautiful orchids

Despite the Covid restrictions and the poor weather we felt we had benefited from the trip.  We loved the zoo and the sand sculptures; I enjoyed the shopping, though I am not sure my husband appreciated it very much, and we both adored the food.  It was so good to eat delicious food in the restaurant again having been imprisoned at home for so many months.

Definitely worth a revisit!