Nord-Pas de Calais

To visit France'’s northernmost region is to discover a universe where sea and earth are intimately linked. In the past ten years, Nord-Pas de Calais has been transformed by the Channel Tunnel––a project accomplished in May 1994 but contemplated by Napoleon two centuries earlier. Another asset is the TGV train service from Paris to Lille, the region’s capital, a non-stop 150-mile trip that takes 59 minutes in railway cars whose comfort equals that of a first-class airliners, minus the airport delays and weather turbulence.

Substantial Flemish Specialties.

Initially the territory of the Belgae, a Celto-Germanic tribe, Northern France was subsequently conquered by the Romans. In 55 BC, Julius Caesar set sail to conquer England from Cap Blanc-Nez, a chalk and clay cliff that plunges 440 feet into the waves south of Calais. After the 5th-century defeat of the Romans, the region was incorporated into Neustria, one of the three territories that then made up France.

Slightly smaller than Connecticut (the region covers 4,800 square miles), Nord-Pas de Calais is bounded on the west by 85 miles of coastline that serve as a gateway to the U.K. and the North Sea.