Amiens
A Unesco World Heritage Site, the largest Gothic cathedral in France (at 145m long) and the largest in the world by volume was begun in 1220 to house the…
Must-see attractions in Lille, Flanders & the Somme
Lille
Inaugurated in 1892, Lille's illustrious Fine Arts Museum claims France's second-largest collection after Paris' Musée du Louvre. Its cache of sublime…
Côte d’Opale
At this vast manta ray–shaped aquarium – one of the world's largest – huge tanks with floor-to-ceiling windows make you feel as though you're swimming…
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
This 1337-room palace, originally built for Louis XV, hosted Napoléon III's dazzling hunting parties, which drew aristocrats from all around Europe. A…
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
For historical and cultural context, the best place to begin a visit to the Somme battlefields is the outstanding Historial de la Grande Guerre in Péronne…
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
A model for several of its more famous Gothic sisters – Chartres, Reims, Dijon and Paris' Notre-Dame among them – this medieval jewel was built between…
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
Believed to date from the 3rd century AD, this extraordinary underground 'city' of quarried tunnels was started by the Romans and expanded over the…
Grand' Place & Place des Héros
Arras
Arras' two ancient market squares, the Grand' Place and the almost-adjacent, smaller place des Héros (also known as the Petite Place), are surrounded by…
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
It's hard not to be overwhelmed by the waste and folly of the Western Front as you walk past panel after panel engraved with 579,606 tiny names: WWI dead…
La Piscine Musée d'Art et d'Industrie
Lille
An art deco municipal swimming pool built between 1927 and 1932 is now an innovative museum showcasing fine arts (paintings, sculptures, drawings) and…
Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Cemetery & Museum
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
The death toll was horrific – 1917 Australians and 519 Britons killed in just one day of fighting – yet the Battle of Fromelles was largely forgotten…
Vimy Ridge Canadian National Historic Site
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
After the war, the French attempted to erase signs of battle and return northern France to agriculture and normalcy. Conversely, the Canadians remembered…
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
Its silhouette instantly recognisable from afar, this 45m-high memorial to the missing of the Somme, 7.5km northeast of Albert, is inscribed with the…
Côte d’Opale
Topped by a lighthouse and a radar station that keeps track of the hundreds of ships that pass by here each day, the 49m-high cliffs of Cap Gris-Nez are…
Côte d’Opale
Boulogne's hilltop Upper City is an island of centuries-old buildings and cobblestone streets. You can walk all the way around this 'Fortified City' atop…
Amiens
Jules Verne (1828–1905) wrote some of his best-known works of brain-tingling – and eerily prescient – science fiction under the eaves of this turreted…
Côte d’Opale
Southwest of Calais, just past Sangatte, the coastal dunes give way to cliffs that culminate in windswept, 134m-high Cap Blanc-Nez, which affords…
Parc du Marquenterre Bird Sanctuary
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
An astonishing 300 bird species have been sighted at this 2-sq-km bird sanctuary, an important migratory stopover between the UK, Iceland, Scandinavia and…
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
The armistice that put an end to WWI was signed in a thick forest 6.5km east of Compiègne, inside the railway carriage of the Allied supreme commander. On…
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
In late September 1918, just six weeks before the end of WWI, American units – flanked by their British, Canadian and Australian allies – launched an…
Mémorial de l'Internement et de la Déportation – Camp de Royallieu
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
Situated about 3km southwest of the city centre, the French military base of Royallieu was used as a Nazi transit and internment camp known as Frontstalag…
Arras
Staging ground for the spring 1917 offensive, Wellington Quarry is a 20m-deep network of old chalk quarries expanded during WWI by tunnellers from New…
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
Some 2400 Australian soldiers were killed or wounded in the April 1918 assault that wrested Villers-Bretonneux from German control. In the 1920s,…
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
Housed in four black concrete cubes, this 2015-opened WWI museum provides an in-depth introduction to WWI on the Western Front. Over 300 extraordinary…
Cité Internationale de la Dentelle et de la Mode
Calais
Innovative exhibits trace the history of lacemaking – the industry that once made Calais a textile powerhouse – from hand knotting (some stunning samples…
Dunkirk
Dunkirk's landmark 58m-high belfry – the bell tower of the original Église St-Éloi before it burnt to the ground in 1558 – was erected in 1440 and has…
Musée d'Art Moderne, d'Art Contemporain et d'Art Brut – LaM
Lille
Colourful, playful and just plain weird works of modern and contemporary art by masters such as Braque, Calder, Léger, Miró, Modigliani and Picasso are…
Lille
Built between 1924 and 1932, Lille's city hall is topped by a slender, 104m-high belfry that was designated a Unesco-listed monument in 2004. Climbing 100…
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
Nestled in the bucolic Authie valley 27km northeast of Le Crotoy, this strikingly beautiful 12th-century abbey, rebuilt between 1687 and 1756, merits a…
Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
This evocative memorial preserves part of the Western Front in the state it was in at fighting's end. The zigzag trench system, which still fills with mud…
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
The innovative Louvre-Lens, opened in 2012, showcases hundreds of treasures from Paris' venerable Musée du Louvre in state-of-the-art exhibition spaces…
Lille
For an authentic taste of grassroots Lille, head to the ethnically diverse, family-friendly quartier populaire (working-class quarter) of Wazemmes, 1.3km…
Mémorial Sud-Africain Delville Wood
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
The memorial (1926) and star-shaped museum (1986), a replica of Cape Town's Castle of Good Hope, stand in the middle of Delville Wood, where in July 1916…
Australian National War Memorial
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
During WWI, 416,809 Australians – 8% of the country's population – volunteered for overseas military service; 46,000 met their deaths on the Western Front…
Arras
Arras' Flemish Gothic city hall dates from the 16th century but was completely rebuilt after WWI. Four géants (giants) live in the lobby. For a panoramic…
Ayette Indian & Chinese Cemetery
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
Towards the end of WWI, tens of thousands of Chinese labourers were recruited by the British government to perform noncombat jobs in Europe, including the…
Calais
In front of Calais' ornate Hôtel de Ville stands the first cast of Rodin's famous sculpture Les Bourgeois de Calais (The Burghers of Calais; 1889), which…
Lille, Flanders & the Somme
The 5000 Ulstermen who perished in the Battle of the Somme are commemorated by this 21m-high Gothic-style tower, an exact replica of Helen’s Tower at…
Dunkirk
Constructed in 1560, the Église St-Éloi was refaced with a neo-Gothic façade completed in 1889. It's dubbed la cathédrale des sables (cathedral of the…
Calais
This broad, gently sloping sandy beach stretching for 8km is safe for swimming and gets packed in summer.
