The first France most British visitors ever see, and the one most of them drive straight through. That is a mistake: Lille is a Flemish city with a Parisian appetite, the Opal Coast has the tallest chalk cliffs on the Channel and the widest beaches in northern Europe, and Amiens has the largest Gothic cathedral in France. It is also the country's great landscape of remembrance — the Somme, Vimy Ridge and Notre-Dame-de-Lorette — and, in the old mining basin around Lens, a UNESCO industrial landscape with a Louvre outpost in the middle of it.
- Lille — the Grand'Place, Vieux Lille and the Palais des Beaux-Arts
- Amiens Cathedral, the biggest in France
- The Opal Coast: Cap Blanc-Nez and Cap Gris-Nez
- The Somme battlefields and the Thiepval Memorial
- The Louvre-Lens
- The Baie de Somme and its seals
- Best time to go
- May–September for the coast and the bay. The battlefield sites are open year-round and are at their most affecting on a grey day; November brings the Armistice commemorations.
- Getting there
- Eurostar London–Lille in 1h22 — the fastest way into France from the UK. Ferries and the Channel Tunnel land at Calais and Dunkirk; the A16 runs the length of the coast.
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Headline places
What france.fr leads with in Hauts-de-France.
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Amiens Cathedral Twice the internal volume of Notre-Dame, and colour-lit after dark -
Thiepval Memorial 72,337 names of the missing of the Somme, on one arch -
Vimy Ridge Canada's memorial on ground still closed for unexploded shells -
Cap Blanc-Nez Chalk cliffs looking straight across at Dover, 34 km away -
Baie de Somme A 70 km² tidal bay with the biggest seal colony in France - Louvre-Lens A glass Louvre annexe dropped onto a former coal pit
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Château de Chantilly The second-best collection of old masters in France, plus the horses -
Lille's Grand'Place Flemish gables round the old stock exchange, and a second-hand book market inside it
Cities & bases
Where to sleep, and what each place is good for.
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Lille Flemish gables, a giant flea market and the best beer list in France -
Amiens The largest Gothic cathedral in France, and floating market gardens -
Arras Two Flemish baroque squares and the tunnels of the Western Front - Boulogne-sur-Mer France's biggest fishing port, a walled upper town and Nausicaá
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Le Touquet-Paris-Plage Belle Époque villas, a 12 km beach and land yachts
Hauts-de-France by experience
The themes this region delivers on.
- Culture & heritage 53 UNESCO World Heritage sites, and the cathedrals that invented Gothic
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Food & wine Seventeen wine regions, 1,600 cheeses, and the gastronomic meal on the UNESCO list -
Nature & outdoors Glaciers, gorges, volcanoes and 180,000 km of waymarked footpath -
Coast & beaches Three seas and an ocean — around 5,800 km of mainland coast, and far more overseas -
Cities Paris, and eleven more cities that would headline any other country -
National & regional parks Eleven national parks and 58 regional ones — about a fifth of the country -
Sport & adventure Skiing, surfing, climbing, paddling — and the Tour, Roland-Garros and Le Mans -
Remembrance The Somme, Verdun and the Normandy beaches — two wars written into the landscape -
Pilgrimage & spirituality Four Camino routes, Lourdes, Mont-Saint-Michel and the Romanesque abbeys -
Spa & wellness Around 90 working thermal spa towns, and the coastline that invented thalassotherapy -
Shopping & savoir-faire Perfume in Grasse, porcelain in Limoges, crystal in Lorraine, couture in Paris -
Nightlife & entertainment Festival season, cabaret, beach clubs and the theme parks
