Thousands of us have done it. We’ve rolled off the Cross-Channel ferry and headed straight for the autoroute, the south and the sunshine. Big mistake – in our hurry we have missed out on some of the most delightful spots in all La Belle France. Maybe it’s time to revisit or, if you’ve never visited before, revise your plans!
A land of history and heritage
Nord-Pas de Calais is a region redolent with British and, more specifically, English history – the land of Agincourt, or Azincourt as the French call it; of the Field of the Cloth of Gold where Henry VIII and French king Francis I met to impress each other and their citizens with their pomp and their power, and where so much blood was shed on the Great War and World War II battlefields of Flanders, Artois and Picardy. From here, the ‘Miracle of Dunkirk’ evacuation took place, invasions were planned and V1 and V2 rockets were launched to rain down on Britain. La Coupole is the vast concrete dome that once housed the latter. It is today an enormous and lavishly upgraded museum to those grim days, it’s latest attractions being a thought provoking space exploration exhibition and an impressive 3D planetarium.
In the wooded hills behind Calais and Boulogne, tinkling brooks course through the picturesque Seven Valleys, a rural idyll where cows graze in lush meadows and are driven down the narrow lanes to the milking parlour while roses seem to grow around every cottage doorway and rolling fields are seasonally filled with blood red poppies in one of Mother Nature’s most spectacular displays.
It’s a place for picnics and country walks and for great food too.
The land of the Ch’tis
This is the land of the Ch’tis – the French Nordistes, rough-hewn sons of the land, the coalmines and the sea too, whose guttural dialect is sometimes barely intelligible, even to their fellow Frenchmen. The fastest grossing movie of all time in any language, ‘Bienvenue Chez les Ch’tis’ stormed the French box office back in 2008 (though it made little impact elsewhere).
In the Breton capital of Rennes the night the film opened it was shown simultaneously and around the clock at three different cinemas there and at 3 am the queues stretched around the block. An amazing tally of 20-million people saw it in its first 25 weeks on release. An engaging, quintessentially French comedy, starring Cad Merad and Dany Boon, its storyline follows the fortunes of a post office manager who is moved from his position in the South of France and told he will be relocated in the North, to him a cold and mysterious place. But slowly he is won over by the locals, their strange ways and odd dialect and when he finally gets a transfer back to the sunshine he bursts into tears, reflecting the local saying: “You cry twice up North: once when you arrive and again when you leave.”
Historic Saint Omer
For a delicious taste of the region – heat to historic Saint Omer.
A trading centre for more than 1,000 years, Saint Omer has a wealth of fascinating architecture – much of it featuring the famed yellow bricks – as well as impressive canals in the lower town. The sea isn’t far away, hence the wealth of fish dishes, including, of course, the ubiquitous moules frites. Much of the other produce used by chefs here comes from the vast Clairmarais water meadows, on the edge of town – a horticultural wonderland, only reachable by flat-bottom boat, which served as a near-impregnable hideaway for the wartime French Resistance.
The marhslands of Saint Omer
A languid boat cruise with Embarcadère Isnor (www.isnor.fr) will glide you past lush allotments and smallholdings, set on long, narrow strips of land known as lègres, your progress accompanied by a wealth of waterfowl and other wild creatures.
Visit La Maison du Marais interpretive centre in the town for an overview of the area. Altogether, there are 3,700 hectares of wetlands in the region, with 160-kms of navigable waterways.
Other attractions in and around Saint Omer include the unusual town hall, nicknamed ‘The Coffee Mill’ by the locals; the library, with its 350,000 volumes; the Musée de L’Hôtel Sandelin, currently featuring the art of Flanders and Champagne 1150-1250 and boasting wonderful collections of paintings and ceramics; the ruins of St. Bertin Abbey; tours of the massive glassworks at Arques; 15-km steam train rides along the valley of the delightfully named River Aa, between Arques and Lumbres; the 13-metre high boat lift at Fontinettes-Arques; the 25 thrill rides of the Dennlys Parc, at Donnebroeucq, and the massive concrete blockhouse built at Eperlecques by the Nazi occupiers.
French Flanders
It is true that much of the Pas de Calais-Nord region is flat as a crêpe but there are some sizeable hills too – the savage so-called ‘Flemish Alps’ that feature so heavily in the classic Tour of Flanders bicycle race are just across the border in Belgium but on the French side there’s Mont Noir, Mont des Chats, crowned by a massive monastery, and, a little further off, Mont Cassel, with its winding, cobbled climb leading to the little hilltop town where Allied Supreme Commander, Marechal Foch, made his headquarters during the First World War.
Here you will find the delightful little T’Kasteelhof estaminet, styled after an old grocery store, where they dish up classic Flemish dishes and rely on ingredients produced within a 100-km radius – hence plenty of beer but no wine list (surely unique for a French restaurant!). The views of the surrounding countryside are wide-sweeping and a superb backdrop for a slow-paced meal.
Welcome to L’Audomarois – the region of Saint Omer, land of the Ch’tis.
For further information go to www.tourisme-saintomer.com
