Guernsey

Guernsey is an island located in the English Channel owned by the British Crown (not part of the United Kingdom) but sharing some things with the United Kingdom such as defence, government and administrative functions. When the UK joined the European Union the situation became even more complicated. The United Kingdom negotiated an exception for the Channel Islands which basically gives them all the advantages of EU membership without the financial obligations. The islanders are full British citizens but not all are European citizens.

The environment and flora is very interesting for an island situated in the English Channel, felt a bit like stepping into Pirates of the Caribbean. It rises 100+ meters above sea level in certain places and the walkabouts along the coast is a good training session for anyone that wants to climb up and down steep hills in narrow passages.

Since the island is a tax haven plenty of fancy cars were spotted and strangely enough car influx were a real problem. We met an old man telling stories about historical events and he clearly got irritated when we talked about all the cars on the island. People seemed to have one car per person, so many houses had 3-4 cars parked outside. Quite funny to have so many cars on an island where you can’t really go anywhere.

We went out to dine one evening, walked quite a bit on the southeastern and south side of the island and managed to visit some history museums situated in Castle Cornet - a fort near the marina. In there we got to know some history before we left for Cameret-sur-Mer. The island has been inhabited since at least 6000 B.C. by neolithic people and the Celtic Britons arrived much later. There has been civil wars tearing it apart and during the second world war the germans occupied the island. 

We are now located in Cameret-sur-Mer, France waiting for better weather forecasts to make the passage over the Bay of Biscay.