Jersey, UK

On the last weekend in November, we visited Jersey - one of the Channel Islands and only 14km off the coast of France. We had booked the trip to Jersey for three reasons:

- The Michelin Star restaurants - so given that good food options is always a trustworthy travel destination criteria - we were on-board to visit (and Jersey butter is pure heaven!) 

- Counting 'another country' although we have aligned this to the UK in our blog categories
- It promised to be warmer than London in November. This turned out to be partly correct as we did get blue sky but also a wind-chill that put Canary Wharf to shame.

Travelling to Jersey
Flight time to Jersey is a mere 40 minutes and we spent more time in the airport eating breakfast at Jamie's Italian restaurant than warming the seats on the BA flight. Our outbound flight was delayed by an hour which gave us a lot of spare time hanging around the North Terminal at Gatwick, in particular checking out Duty Free shops in advance of getting some retail therapy in Jersey.

The full English at Jamie's Italian restaurant

Jersey- British Crown Dependency
Jersey has special status as a British Crown dependency as it was historically part of the Duchy of Normandy. The official currency is the GBP Pound but the island prints its own currency including green £1 notes that are often seen pinned to cork-boards in backpacker's hostels around the world.

The simplicity that is Jersey airport

Sunset at 4pm in the afternoon- must be winter

Traffic Issues in St Helier
As a small island (118 square km), it has a proportionally sized airport in the south west  and transport to the capital of St Helier took about 30 minutes by bus for a bargain fare of £1.70 per person. The bus network is a reliable form of transport to the various towns and St Helier suffers from traffic jams due to Jersey having one of the highest levels of car ownership per capita in the UK.

St Helier is full of sculptures

Radisson Blu Hotel
Our hotel - the Radisson Blu was located on reclaimed land in St Aubin's Bay, where new apartments and a cinema complex have been constructed with a vibe similar to the Gunwharf Quays area in Portsmouth. The cruise ship port and maritime museum are also located nearby marinas full of luxury yachts that no doubt get used more frequently during the summer months.

Part of an old steam ship near the museum

Plenty of boats available for sale

La Fete de Noue
After check-in, we walked down to central St Helier where the Christmas Festival "La Fete de Noue" had kicked off. We ate a sausage from a local supplier and participated in a free guided tour about the history of Jersey with a local celebrity - Arthur Lamy.

One of the best sausages we have eaten in the UK

Tour of Jersey

We started the tour in Royal Square, the site of the last land battle in the UK against the old foes - the French. We visited the city Church to view the beautiful stained glass windows and a wooden statue of St Helier (patron saint of the island). He was martyred after unsuccessfully trying to convert Saxon pirates to Christianity - they weren't convinced and cut off his head. The Church also contains a tombstone to a young child that died in suspicious circumstances on the 13th of April - an unlucky date so the superstitious stonemason switched the numbers resulting in the memorial reading '31 Avril' (31 April in French).

Black Butter

After leaving the Church, we walked through the old part of town where the streets signs are written in 'Jersey French' and in English. The next stop was at the Central Market for a tasting of the local delicacy 'Black Butter' - made from apples, cider and spices and can be used as a condiment on toast and in our opinion tastes similar to Christmas pudding.

The Central market

All decorated for Christmas

Fish Market
After the tour we walked next door to the Fish Market to have a look at the seafood, including boxes of large live whelks; and then we headed back to the Spice Shop to buy a DIY mulled wine kit (for a future cooking project over a cold weekend in London), shortbread and fudge made from Jersey cow cream; and of course a jar of Black Butter for ourselves.

Live whelks

Taxi Drama
We headed back to the hotel to freshen up before dinner. We had booked a table at the Michelin Star restaurant: Ocean at the Atlantic Hotel about 20 minutes away by car. Our hotel's receptionist booked the taxi and therefore we assumed that all details of our destination had been communicated to the driver. So when he asked 'Hotel or Restaurant?', Mei simply thought he was confirming which entrance to drop us off at - replying with 'Restaurant'.

After a short ride (10 minutes) mainly through the traffic jams around the Christmas parade, our taxi stopped outside a small square and on auto-pilot Olie handed over the £6 fare and we got out to a slightly bewildering sight - if this was the right place where was the beach?

Thank you technology - using our phones we located ourselves as still in St Heliers and after a quick scan of the surrounding restaurants we identified the source of cabbie confusion - a cafe named 'Atlantique' in the corner. We quickly hunted down another cab, told our sorry tale of being stranded and he gladly took the fare (£22) to deliver us to the correct restaurant. The cab driver was so entertaining with stories about his life in Jersey that we booked him on the trip back to our hotel after dinner.

The Atlantic Hotel
The Atlantic Hotel is located in St Brelade, featured in BBC's The Apprentice and is situated on a crescent shaped beach that was sadly invisible in the evening's darkness. We chose the seven course tasting menu that included seafood, delicious sauces, roe deer (ie. Bambi) and two pretty desserts that were the highlight of the meal.

Celebrating that we actually made it to the restaurant

Poached Jersey oyster, egg pasta, Oscietra caviar

Langoustine tails, oyster mayonnaise, Ebene caviar

Duck miniatures with foie gras and fig gel

Roasted sea fish, garlic and bouillabaisse cappuccino

Roasted loin of roe deer, root vegetable gratin

Cheese selection

Blueberry mousse

Cranberry snowball, lychee granite, cranberry jelly, white chocolate icecream

St Aubin
The next day we checked out of the hotel early and since the flights back to London were mid-afternoon we were a bit short on time for sightseeing. We caught the #15 bus to the next town of St Aubin where the cab driver had recommended a number of seafood restaurants for lunch.

First day of December, first Christmas mince pie

St Aubin Bay
St Aubin Bay has a beautiful stretch of sandy beach (the actual grainy stuff not the pebbles that you get in Brighton) and a low tide that retreats for 300metres, emptying water out of the marinas  and leaving lots of stranded boats. There are also a number of castles forts that were used during Jersey's turbulent history against French invasion and the German occupation during World War II.

At the beach in December

Map of St Aubin

Bad time to want to go sailing

Olie doing a star jump

Hanging out on the beach before the tide comes in

The fort has an interesting sculpture...oh that's Olie jumping

Hanging outside of the fort wall

Salty Dog Restaurant
For lunch we visited one of the seafood restaurants 'Salty Dog' along the harbour that is popular for Christmas party festivities and the menu focused on Thai / south-east Asian cuisine. Olie chose the whole fish with chilies and lemongrass; whereas Mei had the fish curry - a tomato based stew with scallops, prawns and salmon.

Local Jersey beer

Olie's fish for lunch

Mei's fish curry

Black Butter Airport Drama
After eating all that amazing food, it was time to head off to the airport where we faced some drama trying to get our prized Black Butter souvenir through airport security. When we bought the jar, we completely overlooked its classification as a 'liquid' and the 200g+ weight. Therefore when the inevitable 'beep' went off at security, we were ready to part ways with our purchase. However, this was not the case as in similar circumstances to our trip to Bordeaux where Mei got to keep a metal wine opener in her hand luggage (had it been any other country it would had been classified as a weapon); our Black Butter was confiscated at the gate but Olie's pleas of "this was the sole reason I came to Jersey" swayed the guards to pass over a voucher for a replacement at the duty-free shop on the other side of security - a happy end to our trip to Jersey.

**Connect With Us**

This post was written by: Culture Stamps
If you liked this post, please share it with others using the social media buttons below.
To connect with us and see snippets of our Culture Stamp travel adventures:

• Follow Culture Stamps on Twitter 
• LIKE our Culture Stamps Page on Facebook