Must-see attractions in Lille, Flanders & the Somme

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…

Inaugurated in 1892, Lille's illustrious Fine Arts Museum claims France's second-largest collection after Paris' Musée du Louvre. Its cache of sublime…

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…

This 1337-room palace, originally built for Louis XV, hosted Napoléon III's dazzling hunting parties, which drew aristocrats from all around Europe. A…

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…

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…

Believed to date from the 3rd century AD, this extraordinary underground 'city' of quarried tunnels was started by the Romans and expanded over the…

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…

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…

An art deco municipal swimming pool built between 1927 and 1932 is now an innovative museum showcasing fine arts (paintings, sculptures, drawings) and…

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…

After the war, the French attempted to erase signs of battle and return northern France to agriculture and normalcy. Conversely, the Canadians remembered…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Southwest of Calais, just past Sangatte, the coastal dunes give way to cliffs that culminate in windswept, 134m-high Cap Blanc-Nez, which affords…

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…

In late September 1918, just six weeks before the end of WWI, American units – flanked by their British, Canadian and Australian allies – launched an…