Dunquerke is the least interesting place on Earth

A chap I work with started the Marathon Des Sables today - a 250km run across the Sahara Desert over 6 days. The Sahara is one of the most desolate, unchanging, flat and boring areas of landmass in the world. Compared to Dunquerke though, it's a veritable metropolitan hotspot.

Ju & I decided, based on the fact that we'd heard of it, to pop into Dunquerke on our way home from Lille, to see what there was to see. We got there at the peak hour of activity, and were pleasantly surprised to learn that parking in the city centre was mere pence, as opposed to the usual high tariffs we'd been experiencing in Lille.


_{I was going to put up a picture of Dunquerke, but this one was more interesting.}

We took a stroll up from the car park to see a statue of Jean Bart...whoever he was. It was quite a nice statue, it even had a bit of a water feature. We then walked around the whole centre. Twice. There was a café, which didn't look very nice. There was a clothes shop, which didn't have many clothes. There was a fish shop, which still accepted Francs. There was a boulangerie, I bought a cake.

Then we left.

I went on the internet to find some streams of paint drying, but unfortunately Watching Paint Dry has now shut down, so instead, here's a live stream of grass growing. It's better than visiting Dunquerke.

Jean Bart, by the way, was apparently a French pirate who liked to sink English ships. Bastard. Here's a couple of choice quotes from the Rough Guide I browsed through (after visiting the place, needless to say) to learn that:

"Dunquerke achieved fame at the exact same moment as it was flattened"

"...was rebuilt during the most uninspired period of Western architecture"

"...contains no landmarks or places of interest to visit"

And my favourite line, from the 'Eating Out' section (which normally spans two pages, even for a relatively small French town, and contains many restaurant recommendations, notes about the food of the region, etc):

Eating Out:
Dunquerke is not famous for its gastronomy.
_{<The section ends.>}