Gabled townhouses and Flemish arcades lend a regal atmosphere to Arras (ah-rah; pop. 44,000), but the architecture can’t hide the town’s battle-plagued history. In WWI, the town suffered severe damage as the site of a long series of trench altercations, aptly named the Battle of Arras. Visit this scruffy survivor for its nearby war monuments, and you’ll also discover its small-town appeal. Though Arras is over 100km from the ocean, its spirit remains close to the surf: restaurant menus are loaded with seafood specialties, and the sprawling outdoor cafes on the town’s two squares seem like beach boardwalks.
Arras is bounded by boulevard du Général Faidherbe to the east and rue Gambetta to the southwest. Both meet at place du Maréchal Foch. The centre-ville consists of three large squares: Grand’Place, place des Héros, and Petite Place.
There is a Monoprix supermarket across from the post office at 30 rue Gambetta (open M-Sa 8:30am-7:50pm), an open-air market on place des Héros (open W and Sa 8am-1pm), and specialty shops in the pedestrian shopping area between the post office and the Hôtel de Ville. Inexpensive cafes line pl. des Héros and the pedestrian area, elegant restaurants adorn the Grand’Place, and friteries (hamburger stands) can be found on rue la Taillerie, the alley between the places.
On the outskirts of the vieille ville, military monuments and memorials dot the area around the Vauban Citadel, a site accessible only by tour on Sundays. (Map at the tourist office. Tours from late July to Aug. 3:30pm. €4.80, students and under 18 €3.20.) See Daytrips from Arras for more extensive information on WWI and WWI sights and tours.
Hôtel De Ville. Amid shops, bars, and cafes, the ornate Hôtel de Ville is a faithful replica of the 15th-century original that reigned over pl. des Héros until its destruction in WWI. Its 75m belfry offers the best view of Arras; an elevator takes you within 43 steps of the top. (Access through the tourist office. Open May-Sept. M-Sa 9am-6:30pm, Su 10am-1pm and 2:30-6:30pm; Oct.-Apr. M 10am-noon and 2-6pm, Tu-Sa 9am-noon and 2-6pm, Su 10am-12:30pm and 2:30-6:30pm. €2.70, students €1.80.)
Les Boves. Beneath the town hall, these labyrinthine tunnels were bored into the site’s soft chalk in the 10th century. Over the decades, the passageways have been used as chalk mines, wine cellars, and headquarters for Allied troops awaiting the Battle of Arras during WWI. Now, each spring they are decorated with flowers for a “Boves Garden” exhibit. The tourist office leads 40min. tours; inquire at the office. (☎03 21 51 26 95. Tours €4.70, students and under 18 €2.70.)
Cathédrale And Abbaye Saint-Vaast. Beyond the Hôtel de Ville, the 18th-century Cathédrale and seventh-century Abbaye St-Vaast stand on the hill where St-Vaast used to pray. The cathedral’s Gothic interior contains Corinthian columns alongside Art Deco touches. Look for the seven statues of saints taken from the Pantheon. (Open from mid-May to mid-Oct. daily 10:30am-12:30pm and 2-6pm; from mid-Oct. to mid-May M-Sa 2:30-5:30pm. Guided tours available through the tourist office from mid-June to mid-Sept. Sa 3pm. €4.80, students and under 18 €3.20.) Inside the abbey, the Musée des Beaux-Arts displays a small but interesting collection. Highlights include the skeletal sculpture of Guillaume Lefrançois and Baglione’s series of the eight muses at the top of the stairs. (22 rue Paul Doumer. ☎03 21 71 26 43. Open M and W-Su 9:30am-noon and 2-5:30pm. Last entry 5pm. €4, students €2.)
For a few weeks in July and August, the town dumps tons of sand in Grand’Place to create Arras on the Beach. The festival includes wild beach parties, sporting events, DJs, and live music. Locals play beach volleyball or build sandcastles on this bizarre makeshift shore. Contact the tourist office for specific dates.
Salient Tours offers minibus tours of the WWI memorials surrounding Arras. Half-day tours cost €35 (students €30) and are the cheapest way to see many of the memorials. Tours leave from the Arras train station, though you can arrange for pickup at your hotel for no additional fee. Tour guides are extremely knowledgeable about the sights’ history and have fascinating primary source documents available for examination. The Vimy and Somme memorials are covered in separate tours. Salient mainly visits the memorials below, though you can request to visit other sites. Somme tours depart at 9:15am and return at 1pm. Vimy tours depart at 1:15pm and return at 5pm. (Tours@salienttours.com; www.salienttours.com. Reservations required.)
VIMY MEMORIAL
The Vimy Memorial is 3km from the town of Vimy, 12km northeast of Arras. From Arras, Vimy is a 15min. car ride along N17. If you don’t have a car and choose to go without the tour (the cheapest visiting option), catch a taxi in Arras (€20 each way). Walking along the highway to Vimy takes 50min. and can be dangerous.Monument ☎03 21 50 68 68. Open daily sunrise-sunset. Tunnels ☎03 21 48 98 97. Open May-Oct. daily 10am-6pm. Free tours in English and French every 45min. Reservations recommended (☎03 22 76 70 86); tours fill up fast. Museum ☎03 21 50 68 68. Open daily May-Oct. 10am-6pm; Nov.-Apr. 9am-5pm.
In April 1917, Canadian troops overtook German forces at the strategic Vimy Ridge, a feat that other Allied troops had failed to accomplish. Today, the Vimy Memorial stands as a gift to the Canadian government honoring the more than 66,000 Canadian soldiers who were killed during WWI. The two pylons of the monument bear the names of 11,000 soldiers killed in the battle. Sculpted figures surround the edifice: the most poignant is that of a woman, Canada Weeping for Her Children, carved from a single 30-ton limestone block.
The surrounding park, crisscrossed by German and Canadian trenches, is morbidly beautiful; hills and craters carved out by shells and mines are now covered by grass and sheep. Explore the trenches, but be sure to stay on the marked paths, as there are still active mines in the fenced-off areas. Today, the town of Vimy employs several full-time mine defusers, who are kept busy with the area’s frightening number of remaining explosives. Herds of sheep—or, rather, sacrificial lambs—graze the land so that people don’t risk their lives mowing the grass. To the shock of curators, an enormous mine was recently discovered under the women’s washroom in the visitors center of the park—but don’t head for the bushes yet; it has since been defused. A film at the monument’s museum recounts the details of the excavation.
A free underground tour of the crumbling tunnels, given by Canadian students, starts at the kiosk near the trenches. Details highlighted during the tour hint at the realities of life on the front lines. The small museum near the monument recounts the battle and Canada’s role in the war.
If you choose to go by car, pick up the useful brochure The Visitors’ Guide to the Battlefields of the Somme, available at tourist offices throughout the département; however, the tour provides more information than you’ll find at the memorials and is cheaper than renting a car. The following sights are listed in the order they are visited on the tour.
When the French concentrated their forces in an attempt to halt the German advance, they left British and Commonwealth forces on the northern front, along the Somme département. After sustaining heavy casualties at Verdun, the French asked their allies to create a northern diversion at the Somme to spread out the German forces. The Battle of the Somme, designed for this purpose, began on July 1, 1916, and was one of the least successful battles of the war for the Allies. Anticipating such an attack, the entrenched German command had substantially fortified its position with a clever layered trench system. The lines barely moved for six months, during which the Allies suffered heavy losses, until Germany voluntarily left the region for strategic reasons. All in all, over one million men were mobilized along the front, and 330,000 casualties were sustained, 58,000 on the first day alone. Cemeteries and monuments pay tribute to those who were lost in the misguided attacks of 1916; some commemorate the more successful repulsion that finally came in 1918.
Newfoundland Park. Just outside Beaumont-Hamel, the Newfoundland Park and its enormous hilltop caribou statue facing the battlefield commemorate the loss of nearly an entire regiment of troops from the Canadian province of Newfoundland. An identical statue rests in Newfoundland, facing toward the Somme in reverence. The Allies planned to bombard the Germans for seven days, then set off an 18-ton underground mine to divert attention and initiate a “surprise” attack. On July 1 (after the seven days), the Newfoundland regiment was ordered to walk carefully across 500m of barbed wire, only to discover the bombardment had failed completely—but by then it was too late. The Germans had hidden safely in fortified underground bunkers and, upon seeing the soldiers, opened fire; nearly 700 Allies died in the first half-hour of the attack, at the hands of only five or six German machine-gunners; only 78 men survived. The current park is maintained by the Canadian government, which offers free tours of the trench-marked land in English and French. You may want to slather on insect repellent before you arrive here; the fields are often swarmed with thousands of pesky “thunder bugs.” (☎03 22 76 70 86.)
Thiepval Visitor Center. The Thiepval Visitor Center offers a great introduction to the multiple stages of the battle with a small museum, film, and narrative display leading to the monument outside. If you choose to visit the memorials by car, this is a good place to start and gain the background you would otherwise receive on the tour. (☎03 22 74 60 47; fax 74 65 44. Open daily May-Oct. 10am-6pm; Nov.-Apr. 9am-6pm. Closed for 2 weeks over Christmas and New Year’s. Free.) The 45m Franco-British War Memorial, dedicated to the dead and missing of the Battle of the Somme, just outside Thiepval, is the largest British war memorial in the world. It bears the names of over 73,000 soldiers who were lost on the front from 1915 to 1918 and who have no known grave. (Open sunrise-sunset.)
Ulster Memorial Tower. Completed in 1921, the memorial stands outside Thiepval. It commemorates the 36th Division troops from Northern Ireland, the only soldiers successful in taking their objectives on July 1—before being subjected to the full force of a German counterattack and losing 5500 men. The tower itself is a replica of Helen’s Tower, a large, stoic landmark in Clandeboye, Ireland, that stands where the soldiers trained before the war. The memorial offers tours of the mine-filled Thiepval Woods, which cannot be visited otherwise. If you’re making a day of visiting the memorials, stop here for lunch. (☎03 22 74 81 11. Open Tu-Su 10am-6pm. Tour of woods Tu and Sa 11am, 3pm.)
Musée Somme 1916. This museum is housed in a tunnel that sheltered the French and British during WWI and was used again in 1939 as a bomb shelter. The museum recreates life in the trenches in the July 1916 offensive front and displays photos and objects that narrate the Battle of the Somme. (☎03 22 75 16 17; www.somme-trench-museum.co.uk. Open daily June-Sept. 9am-6pm; Oct.-Dec. and Feb.-May 9am-noon and 2-6pm. Guided tours available; reserve ahead. €5, students and under 18 €3.)
National Memorial And South African Museum. This museum and memorial commemorates South African soldiers in both WWI and WWII. Nearly 4000 South African men were killed in an attack on July 15, 1916. The surrounding woods were also destroyed, and the sole tree that survived the attack is as moving as the beautiful etched glass on display in the memorial museum. To find the tree, walk behind the museum to the left. (☎03 22 85 02 17. Open daily from Apr. to mid-Oct. 10am-5:45pm; from mid-Oct. to Mar. 10am-3:45pm.)
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For 52 years, we have published the world’s favorite budget travel guides, written entirely by students and updated every year. With pen and notebook in hand and a few changes of underwear stuffed in our backpacks, we spend months roaming the globe in search of travel bargains.
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