Arras
Our Association offers the opportunity to explore and experience French culture, heritage, and cuisine.
Situated in the Pas de Calais department, 182 kilometres (113 miles) north of Paris and within an easy day’s journey from Ipswich.
Key Features
Arras is a beautiful town well-known for its architecture, history, and culture offering, amongst many others, the following attractions:
Town Hall and Belfry
A world heritage site
Two Beautiful Town Squares
With their Flemish façades, home to superb weekly markets on Wednesday and Saturday
Carrière Wellington
A splendid newly updated museum set in part of a network of tunnels, which commemorates the soldiers who built the tunnels and fought in the Battle of Arras in 1917
Musée des Beaux Arts
As well as a wonderful range of shops and buildings, besides its own Arras War Memorial, designed by Sir Edward Lutyens, the town is within easy reach of WW1 memorials of Vimy Ridge, Notre Dame de Lorette, and Thiepval.
History
Much of the town was devastated in the First World War, including the Town Hall and the facades in the two main squares, but was rebuilt to the original designs.
In the 15th century Arras became the renowned centre for the production of tapestries.
It is also the birthplace of the notorious revolutionary statesman Robespierre.