Tourism in the Pas-de-Calais

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

The Pas-de-Calais comprises also remarkable sporting sites like the stage Felix Bollaert, seat of Racing Club of Lens, or the regional covered stage of Liévin which accommodates demonstrations of athletics, the watery center Nauticaa with Liévin with five basins one of the most beautiful swimming pool of the Pas-de-Calais. One finds there also a track artificial of ski (in the course of restoration) with Nœux-the-Mines and a course of Saint-Laurent-Blangy canoe-kayak close to Arras.

Cultural tourism

The Pas-de-Calais comprises many cultural monuments like the places of Arras, Aire on the Lily, the Beffroi S of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais, Arras, Béthune, Aire on the Lily.

Museums of the department, those of Boulogne-sur-Mer (fifth collection of Egyptian art in the world) and of Saint-Omer, with his internationally known chiefs of works of the 18th century, the museum of Beautiful arts of Arras. 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 Marais audomarois are from where one can join the sea in boat while crossing the marshes of Ardres and of Guines.

At the south of the department, the town of Montreuil-sur-Mer is located. Undoubtedly one of the cities best preserved Pas-de-Calais, (with Arras, Saint-Omer, and Surface on the Lily) it is located on a hill and very known for its ramparts and one of the novels of Victor Hugo. These cities are rich in inheritance, even if many underwent the destruction of the revolution and the many wars which have particularly affected the department because of its position of " crossroads of Europe".

Lastly, 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.

Tourism of the memory

Traces of the many conflicts which the department had to undergo remain that they are old Azincourt or more recent first and second world war.

Tourism of the memory developed around the sites of Vimy, Neuville-Saint-Vaast, Ablain-Saint-Nazaire or the Coupole of Helfaut and the Blockhaus of Éperlecques.

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