Tourism in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais

A long time, the area seemed contrary to until a Parisian, hexagonal or foreign visitor could wait his holidays. Doubly marked by the industrial tradition and its consequence, the economic crisis of the Seventies, all here seems turns the back on the practice.

Only the beaches of North (Bray-Dunes) and of the Pas-de-Calais (Berck, Touquet), famous for their dunes and their vast beaches, paradise of the sand yacht, seem here of long time to have been able to allure the visitors (sanatorium of Berck, seaside resort (“Paris-Beach”) in Touquet.

Beginning of the year 90 marked a turning. Encouraged by the arrival in 1993 of TGV North-Europe then trains transmanches Eurostar economic S, elected officials and persons in charge developed the frequentation of weekend and proximity. They were to benefit from a cultural heritage and history (belfries, fortifications of Vauban, Rihour palate and Vieille Stock Exchange with Lille) insufficiently exploited as well as proximity urban centres (Paris, Brussels, London). The museums of art also accompanied the reconversion by the area: restoration of the museum of the Valencian Art schools of , opening of an antenna of the museum of Louvre Lens, museum in an old covered swimming pool with Roubaix, unexpected and daring cultural bets in an old mine field and metallurgical. This industrial tradition itself was the subject of a tourist valorization.

The choice of Lille European Capitale of the culture in 2004 will come to devote this revalorization.

Natural sites and sporting tourism

The coast of Opal

The Coast of Opal (Berck, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Touquet, Audresselles, Wissant…) is one of the tourist places most remarkable of the regional park with the site of the two courses Gray-nose and Blanc-Nez, the citadel of Boulogne-sur-Mer whose ramparts, intact, go back to the Romans and the center Nausicaa where one can observe many marine species. The beaches of the coast of Opal belong to greatest and beautiful beaches of Europe.

On the beaches between Berck and Equihen, one practices sports like the sand yacht, the kite, the speed-sail or kite-surfing. Touquet and Ambleteuse are stations very with dimensions which have in particular a splendid club of tennis while the Britanniques will play golf with Wimereux.

Many tourists descend each summer the Canche (river) in the canoe-kayak passing by Hesdin, Beaurainville or Montreuil-sur-Mer as well as many villages of the edge of Canche.

The fishing of leisures is very developed in this scrap-metal sector. Even wild trout there is fished. Migrating sea trouts also go up Slack, Canche and Authie as some salmons which are taken certain years. Many efforts are made so that this large migrating returns in these rivers like in the Liana. It should be noted that the largest salmon of France was fished in Brimeux on Canche at end of last century.

In the grounds

Avesnois has developed for several years tourism of proximity encouraged by important flows of transits (Belgian, Dutch, Britanniques): many lodgings, excursions, bases leisure of the Valley Jolly in the canton of Fourmies-Trélon. The landscapes of Avesnois are green, unexpected of an area of old industry: meadows of the woodlands, forests of leafy trees, orchards, sinuous rivers, picturesque mills and villages where the kiosks of spectacle and the blue stone oratories are still numerous.

Cultural tourism

A rich person inheritance

The cities of North and the Pas-de-Calais are rich in inheritance, even if much underwent the destruction of the Révolution and the wars, in particular of the two world wars, because of their frontier position.

Several cities of North and the Pas-de-Calais are classified Ville of art and history. It is about Arras, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Cambrai, Lille, Roubaix and Saint-Omer.

Seventeen Beffroi S of the two departments are registered on the list of the World heritage of UNESCO.

Remarkable monuments or units

  • places of Arras;
  • the citadel of Lille;
  • ramparts of Montreuil-sur-Mer, undoubtedly one of the cities best preserved Pas-de-Calais.

Museums

Museums of the Art schools

Other museums

  • departmental Museum of archeology of Bavay
  • regional Museum of ethnology of Béthune

Saint-Omer also preserved a cathedral decorated in particular with statues and paintings going of the Middle Ages at the 19th century, and where came Saint Louis, Louis XIV and probably Charles Quint. Around Saint-Omer the marshes audomarois are from where one can join the sea in boat while crossing the marshes of Ardres and of Guines.

The legacy of the wars

The fortifications of Montreuil-sur-Mer, the citadels of Gravelines (“the Pearl of North”), Lille (“the Queen of the Citadels”) and Quesnoy, works of Vauban, testify to last to border to the area. The town of Arras is candidate with thirteen other cities to obtain from UNESCO a classification with the world heritage of the fortifications of its beautiful called citadel “useless one”, built within Vauban. The Canadian monument of Vimy commemorates the memory of the Canadians fallen to the Bataille from the peak from Vimy.

The Cupola of Helfaut, located in the Pas-de-Calais close to the town of Saint-Omer, is an old underground bunker built by the Nazi Germany between 1943 and 1944. At the origin this bunker was to be used as a basis of launching with the rockets V2, but it never entered in service. Today the Cupola was transformed into museum devoted to the occupation in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, to the German secret weapons and the space conquest during the Cold war.

The Extremely of the dunes: In 1874, the general Séré de Rivières who directed the services of the genius was project superintendent of the construction of a system of fortifications. The fort of the dunes which was to become one of the showpieces of the strategy of defense of the territory and the Dunkirk agglomeration. One chooses the narrow part of Bray-Dunes formed of the dune cord and primitive polders, having a channel, two roads and a railway coming from the Belgian border, to build the fort.

Human activities and last industrialist

It is in the communes of the interior of the Pas-de-Calais that was invented the concept of industrial tourism with the safeguarding of the rests of mines in the field of the Pas-de-Calais, then the opening of the mining Historical center of Lewarde.

Other centers of interest:

Festivals

The festivals which punctuate the year in the North-Not of Calais are also tourist events which attract many visitors. Among most known it is necessary to quote the Carnaval of Dunkirk and the exits of many the giant. Since November 2005, the traditional giants of France and Belgium (in particular those of Douai and Cassel) and their festivals are registered under masterpieces of the oral and immaterial Patrimoine of humanity near UNESCO. It is also necessary to quote the annual annual stock sale of Lille the first weekend of September and the balances and stores of companies to Roubaix.

Festivals

  • Festival of the Coast of Opal;
  • Festival of the Abbey of Saint-Michel in Thiérache (old music and baroque);
  • Festival of short film of Lille;
  • Festival Juventus (Cambric);
  • Festival Storyteller in Shift

See too

Related article

External bonds

  • Departmental committee of tourism of the Pas-de-Calais

  • Committee of Tourism of North
  • Departmental committee of Tourism of the Pas-de-Calais
  • Regional committee of Tourism of the North-Not of Calais
  • the Guide of Routard North-Not of Calais
  • Country of North the tourist Magazine of the North of France and Belgium

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