All the ingredients of an authentic French fix are right here at your doorstep, a quick Eurostar journey or a short ferry ride. First stop is always a cafe terrace on Lille’s fabulous Grand’Place where you can soak up the atmosphere of those flamboyant Flemish facades and absorb the buzz of a vibrant city. Dunkerque is a surprisingly family-friendly town with some inspirational attractions that include harbour tours by boat, an excellent maritime museum, and a remembrance museum to Operation Dynamo. Tour the countryside around Cambrai and it’s hard to imagine the fierce fighting that took place here in 1917. A year later, war poet Wilfred Owen wrote his last letter home from a forest retreat at nearby Ors. But nearly a century on, modern Cambrai is an upbeat and elegant town. Here you keep finding something unexpected. Like the Gayant family from Douai. This outsized family of carnival characters are the stars of the annual Festival of Giants, a riot of music and merrymaking. Believe it or not, Northern produces more than 300 cheeses, the speciality being Maroilles, awarded AOC quality status. The Monts de Flandre is just a boule’s bounce from Lille and Dunkerque, but delightfully unspoilt and largely undiscovered. Have a soft spot for the hilltop town of Cassel with its Flemish architecture, historic windmill and friendly restaurants such as estaminets where discussions become animated with unparalleled warmth, to micro-breweries. Take it easy !

Must dans le Nord

• Soak up the atmosphere in buzzling and vibrant city of Lille
• Explore remembrance sites : Wilfred Owen’s forest retreat, the battles of Fromelles and Cambrai.
• Stroll in the quaint villages of Flanders and hilltop of Cassel and Mont des Cats
• Discover the Centre for Mining History : 1st mining museum in France in a Unesco listed area
• Admire Matisse works in his native town, le Cateau Cambrésis, at The Matisse Museum
• Chill out in the peaceful Avesnois Regional Nature Park.
• Dive into culture at the former art deco swimming-pool, La Piscine in Roubaix, now a museum
• Go sandyachting in the long sandy beaches and dunes
• Have fun at the carnivals and street markets