Chris George; John de Garisormany, the longest
part of the journey
toGuernsey will be
ge ing to the
airport in the UK:
ights to Guernsey
can take a mere hour and passport
formalities are few. Despite being just a
few miles away from mainland France,
cars drive on the le and the highway
code is more or less the same as in the
UK (apart from the lower speed limit),
so driving around is a breeze – and
there’s never much of a journey from
one place to the next as the island is a
mere 12 miles from tip to toe. The
journey from the airport to the capital
St Peter Port takes 10 minutes, and you
can be ordering tea and cakes on the
terrace of Hotel de Havelet,
overlooking the bustling harbour,
before you know it.
St Peter Port is the capital of
Guernsey, as well as being its major
port – it’s a granite-built town with awide, ower-fringed cobbled esplanade
running the length of the harbour, and
narrow streets clinging to the steep
inclines. Like the island itself, St Peter
Port is small and perfectly formed, so
it’s the ideal base for a weekend. It is a
town crammed with history – and
most recently during the Second World
War, was under German occupation
for ve long years (as was the rest of
the island).
If you’ve read the book or seen the
lm The Guernsey Literary and Potato
Peel Pie Society, you’ll have an insight
into the harsh conditions the islanders
lived under during this time, and the
area has several museums dedicated to
the history of the occupation,
including a German Occupation
Museum and original Signals HQ as
well as a wartime underground
hospital; while the stern 800-year-old
fortress of Castle Cornet, down on the
harbour front, houses not one but four
museums dedicated to the island’sABOVE Castle Cornet
dominating the skyline above
the harbour. BELOW Guernsey
was occupied during the Second
World War and the German
Occupation Museum gives
fascinating insight into this time.138 Homes & Antiques August 2019