Plage du Touquet-Paris-Plage, Sandy beach in Le Touquet, France.
The plage du Touquet-Paris-Plage is a wide sandy beach on the English Channel coast in northern France, running for about 12 km. The shoreline is flat and open, backed by dune formations that separate the sand from the town behind.
In the 1920s wealthy French and British visitors turned the area into a fashionable seaside resort, building grand villas and hotels along the coast. That wave of construction gave the town its name and shaped the way it looks today.
Every year the beach hosts the Enduropale, a motorcycle race run directly on the sand that draws thousands of riders and spectators from across Europe. During the race the entire shoreline turns into a track, looking nothing like its usual open and empty self.
The beach is easy to access from several points along the town, with paths leading through the dunes down to the sand. Tides change the width of the beach considerably, so checking a tide table before you go helps you plan your time on the sand.
At low tide the sea pulls back so far that the exposed sand can be over half a mile (about 1 km) wide, making this one of the broadest beaches on the Channel coast. That same flat open expanse is what has made sand yachting a tradition here for decades.
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