A Weekend In Jersey

{mosimage} I do not enjoy journeys. I’m not being anti-GA when I say that – it’s not the means of travel that bothers me, I just don’t have a lot of patience. If I’m to go away for a weekend I want to get where I’m going pretty quickly and get on with the relaxing thing as soon as possible. As a result I like Jersey. It’s different enough to make you feel as though you are ‘away’, but near enough to make the journey short and relatively simple. It’s an international destination, but without a foreign language, and for all these reasons, it gets my vote as a good place to visit. Our last weekend visit, in September 2005, was great. It hasn’t always been that way. Weekends in Jersey can be dire unless you find the right place to stay. We stayed at the Atlantic Hotel which was excellent, but on a previous occasion we stayed at a rather larger hotel where everything was vastly expensive and the service was terrible. You’ll know how bad things were when I tell you the KIDS sent their food back. TWICE.

Jersey is not a cheap place to stay and is not over endowed with tourist attractions. There is a short tourist season and anyone venturing to the island outside it is likely to find things closed and shuttered. A little like the Greek islands then, but without the sunshine. Or the wine. Or the food. Or the people. OK. Maybe not so much like the Greek islands at all.

What Jersey does have is

Excellent seafood
Duty free shopping
A Fantastic zoo

Add some interesting history and you have a leisurely weekend (even long weekend) destination. Hire a car to see the sights and don’t forget to sample the seafood. Of course you can fly to the other islands or to France and boat trips are another possibility. We’d recommend

Jersey Zoo – fascinating animals including gorillas, orangutans and lemurs as well as lovely gardens.
The Falconry display – not much publicity but well worth watching.
The Atlantic Hotel – adult and child friendly, a lovely place to stay
Catherine Best Jewellery. The Channel Islands own exclusive jewellery designer. Not cheap by any means but very different and well worth a visit. The restaurant next door serves excellent seafood.

Other much touted attractions include Jersey Goldsmiths, Jersey Pearl and the Jsery Pottery but none of these proved very exciting.

I enjoyed my weekend break on Jersey, and now that I have found somewhere to stay, I’m looking forward to repeating it.