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Pictured above: St-Valéry-sur-Somme; St-Riquier belfry; Wissant;
Bailleul belfry; Pays du Nord magazine; Calais belfry. All © Angela Bird. |
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Regional tourist boards Weather |
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Nordm@g |
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Pays du Nord |
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Musenor |
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Vide-greniers
(car-boot sales) |
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The Belfries of the north |
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Fortified towns and fortifications |
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War-related sites and other places to visit |
Links by area (area numbers and headings
relate to the section divisions in Angela Bird’s Northern France guidebook)
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BERGUES |
The tourist-office
site introduces you to this charming little walled town, that shot to
prominence in 2008 after the stupefying success of Dany Boon’s enchanting film
comedy “Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis” |
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BRAY-DUNES |
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CASSEL |
This
charming hilltop town has a rather confusing website.
There is plenty of information if you dig for it, but you have to be
patient... (Page 42 of book) |
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DUNKERQUE |
Tourist office
(Page 44 of book) Dunkerque’s
excellent Musée Portuaire has a
rather fancy website telling you about its old ships. (Page 46 of book) The
fascinating story of the Dunkirk Evacuation of May 1940 is unfolded in the Mémorial du Souvenir. (Page 47 of
book) Here’s a
site that gives a flavour of Dunkerque’s amazing museum of modern art – the LAAC - and its
sculpture park. (Page 45 of book) More
culture in the town’s fine-arts museum, the Musée des
Beaux-Arts. (Page 47 of book) The site
for Dunkerque’s
18-hole golf course, that weaves in and out of Vauban’s fortifications. A useful
website describing the attractions of Dunkerque is the still
slightly-embryonic Dunkirk Guide. |
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ESQUELBECQ |
A good website for this attractive village
south of Dunkerque, which has since 2007 declared itself to be a “village du
livre”, or a centre for second-hand books. (p50 of book) |
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GHYVELDE |
Ecomusée: Ferme de
Bommelaers Wall. The website for
this enjoyable museum of Flemish farm life plays you some jolly rural music
as you view. (p49 of book) |
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GODEWAERSVELDE |
Les Gigottos Automates A site where you can have a glimpse of Bruno
Dehondt’s wonderful creations: life-sized animated figures made from recycled
domestic machinery. (p53 of book). |
Gigottos: a marching band |
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STEENVOORDE |
The Pays des Géants
website for this attractive Flemish town also has a good diary of coming
events (Accueil-Agenda, and then pick a date on the calendar – and ask for a
one-month view). Steenmeulen. The website for Joseph Markey’s splendid
brick-built windmill and his fascinating rural life collection. (p52 of book) |
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STEENWERCK |
Here is
a website for the enjoyable Musée de la Vie /Rurale
(open May-Oct). (p41 of book) |
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WORMHOUT |
Here’s a
link to a site for
Llandudno – a town that is twinned with the Flemish town of Wormhout
following a strong WWII connection. This is
based around the massacre by SS troops in May 1940 of 80 British soldiers who
had been protecting the escape route to the beaches of Dunkirk. The site is
marked by the Grange des Fusillés (p50 of book) |
Massacre site at Wormhout |
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YPRES / IEPER |
Last
Post ceremony. Here is a link to the Last
Post Association, that keeps alive the nightly tradition by which the
Ypres Fire Brigade’s buglers sound the Last Post each evening beneath the
monumental Menin Gate at Ypres for those who fell in the Ypres Salient during
WWI. (p53 of book) |
The Menin Gate at Ypres |
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BLENDECQUES, |
La Coupole |
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BOULOGNE SUR MER |
The collections
of Boulogne’s magnificent Chateau-Musée can be viewed on line here. A sister website to the brilliant Calais Guide (see
below) is the almost-as-good Boulogne
Guide. |
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CALAIS |
Fantastic website on Calais, the Calais Guide gives every snippet of
information you could be looking for, from where to eat and what to visit, to
transport services and nightlife. |
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WATTEN |
Here is the website of an attractive little town
north-west of St-Omer, a port where the river Aa meets one of the north’s
main canals. |
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BERCK |
Here is a
webcam for the large seaside resort
of Berck |
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HARDELOT |
This is a
webcam view of Hardelot-Plage |
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MONTREUIL |
A link to
the cultural life of Montreuil and
surrounding area. |
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ABBEVILLE |
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The magical Gardens of Valloires between
Montreuil and Abbeville. |
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ALBERT |
Musée Somme 1916 is in a series
of tunnels beneath the town’s large basilica church, now converted into an
atmospheric museum of WWI trench life. Here are some rather wonderful photos of the
basilica church of Albert, taken by French photographer Arnaud Fiocret The modern Thiepval Visitor Centre explains British and French action
on the Somme. The Royal British Legion has a Somme branch
that organises the annual 11 November ceremonies at the Ulster Tower and at
Thiepval. Information on membership from their
website. |
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ARRAS |
Arras tourist office website (in French)
has links to many tourism brochures that can be downloaded. Here is a
link to a webcam overlooking the Place des Héros in Arras. The collections
of the Arras Musée des Beaux Arts can be viewed here. |
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PÉRONNE |
The Historial de la Grande Guerre is a modern museum behind
the medieval gatehouse of Péronne’s former castle. It gives a good overview
of World War I. |
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VILLERS-BRETONNEUX |
The Musée
Franco-Australien, at Villers-Bretonneux, describes the
involvement of Australian forces in World War I. This “Digger history” site has
good pictures of the Australian National Memorial, outside the town of
Villers-Bretonneux. |
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LOOS-EN-GOHELLE |
The volunteers of the Alexandre Villedieu museum in Loos have set up an interesting website to give information on the area where the Battle of Loos was fought during WWI.. |
To visit
the museum, or to book a tour of the Double Crassier site, contact the
museum by email |
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General |
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The Long Long Trail website has
been created by Chris Baker to present the facts of the British Army during
World War I. It also has a lively forum on which much fascinating information
is exchanged on all topics relating to the Great War – not only in France but
also in other theatres of the war. If you want to know how to research a
particular soldier, there are plenty of hints here. |
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The Great War in a Different Light
is a brilliant website full of contemporary illustrations, photographs and
writings from magazines published at the time. Exhaustively indexed, so you
can quickly reach any subject of particular interest, it has extracts from
publications in English, French, German, Spanish and Dutch. |
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The Western Front Association is an organisation that
supports research into the Great War, the renovation of memorials and other
projects. |
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The
Imperial War Museum, London, was founded in 1917 and first opened to the
public in 1920. Since 1936 it has been in its current location, the former
Bethlem Royal Hospital buildings in Southwark. The original purpose of the
IWM was to record the story of the Great War and mark the contribution of the
Empire to victory. As well as comprehensive displays of uniforms and models
connected with World War I, there is the excellent “Trench Experience”. Open
Daily 10am-6pm. |
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The National Army Museum,
London, has a permanent gallery devoted to World War I that includes infantry
and cavalry soldiers from 1914, a machine gun team, trench periscope and
reconstructed dug-out from 1917. Open Daily 10am-5.30pm. |
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The Historial
de la Grande Guerre, Péronne, France, gives an excellent overview of
World War I from the perspective of both sides. Headsets give tours in
English, French and German. Open Daily 10am-6pm, Closed mid-Dec to
mid-Jan. |
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The National Library of Australia’s “Picture
Australia” website has a brilliant archive of WWI images. From this
page on Péronne, for example, you can type the name of any other town or
village and see what pictures – usually old postcard views of wartime
soldiers or general devastation - come up. |
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For some personal battlefield-visiting
experiences, read the website of the
North Manchester Battlefield Society. NMBS members Stuart, Steve, Kevin,
Lance and Gerry - the self-styled “Chippendales
of battlefield-tour groups” – give lively reports on visiting, shopping, and
the best places for a beer during their annual one-week trips to the Somme,
Ypres, Verdun, and also to WW2 sites and to war-related destinations in the
UK. |
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It is strictly forbidden by French law to
use metal detectors in the
département of the Somme. This page (in French) explains
the law in detail, but basically the reason is that so much dangerously
unstable ordnance lies in the soil still (unexploded shells, gas shells,
etc), which kill and maim many people every year. |
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Battle of the Somme
July-Nov 1916 |
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Battlefield guide Paul Reed has produced an
excellent, fact-packed site about the Somme. Here is a link to the “Visiting the Somme”
pages, with recommendations for accommodation and restaurants in
the area. |
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Battle of Arras/Artois April/May 1917 |
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The
Battle of Arras is well explained on this page from the Long Long Trail. |
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An explanation, from an American website,
of the Battle of Arras
and the taking of Vimy Ridge. |
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The
Great War Different site shows contemporary illustrations of the tunnels
beneath Arras, that enabled the Allies to surprise the Germans and to take
Vimy Ridge |
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A description of the newly-opened
“Wellington Quarry”, the labyrinth of tunnels beneath Arras in which
Allied troops were concealed for two weeks before launching their Easter
attack. |
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Battle of the Lys
April 1918 |
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J Rickard’s site has a good description of the events leading
up to the Battle of the Lys, during the German spring offensive of 1918. |
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NORTHERN FRANCE
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