The wide sandy beach of Calais LA Plage is shaped by the tides, revealing ever-changing coastal landscapes. It is also home to a panoramic promenade, natural areas and modern seaside sports facilities. In the city, maritime history, fortifications and textile culture offer further discoveries. Calais therefore offers different options when choosing your destination: the coast, the city’s history, or art and crafts.
Coast and Tides
The changing tides are part of the beach’s character: the coastal landscape is never quite the same. The panoramic promenade offers another way to experience the coast, while natural areas and sports facilities add to the picture of Calais LA Plage. If the sea is your main focus when planning, you will find more here than just a sandy beach: there are also different aspects of the coast to explore. The tides are a good reason not to view the coast as an unchanging backdrop.
Lighthouse and Maritime History
The Phare de Calais has been listed as a historic monument since 2010. There are 271 steps to the top, where a balcony offers panoramic views of the surrounding landscape. The number of steps alone makes the climb an activity in its own right. The visitor area at the foot of the lighthouse is open to the public free of charge. A guide is always on hand to inform visitors and give demonstrations. There, you can discover and try out navigation instruments such as a compass, Navisphère, sextant, GPS, anemometer, VHF radio and echo sounder. The visitor area and the climb offer two different perspectives on maritime navigation: one through instruments and demonstrations, and the other from above, overlooking the landscape.
Explore the Fortifications on Foot or by Bike
The Citadelle de Calais can be explored on foot or by bike. One particularly pleasant route in is through the Porte de Neptune at Square Vauban. The citadel preserves the last visible sections of the former Calais Nord fortification walls. If you would like to explore the site more actively, you can follow the orienteering course offered there, which runs along paths and through wooded areas and follows the fortification walls. The Citadelle invites you to focus both on its historic structure and on the paths through its grounds.
Fort Risban offers a different perspective on the city’s history: today, it is a promenade along the harbour and a footpath to the waterfront promenade. Calais therefore offers different ways to explore, from the Citadelle’s fortification walls to the harbour promenade. You can choose which of these routes and places to prioritise based on your interests, without having to follow a set sightseeing itinerary.
Lace Art, Street Art and the Market
The Cité de la Dentelle et de la Mode is housed in a former nineteenth-century communal factory. The experience includes demonstrations of lace-making machines and techniques. A former tulliste—a lace-making technician—explains how they work. The building and demonstrations bring together two aspects: the former factory and the practical explanation of lace-making.
The Calais Street Art Festival adds a different form of art. Since 2020, it has transformed the city into an integrated open-air exhibition of urban art, with more than 60 works. Lace-making and street art offer contrasting experiences: a former industrial building and demonstrations of techniques on the one hand, and urban art in the city streets on the other.
A market is held at Place d’Armes every Wednesday and Saturday. If you would like to plan your stay around a market day, check the market schedule again before travelling. This regular weekly event can thus be factored into your plans without treating it as the same kind of activity as the historical and cultural visits.
Discover more destinations: Dannes, Outreau, Saint-Venant, Nempont-Saint-Firmin, Buire-Le-Sec, Maninghem, Oye-Plage, Ligny-Lès-Aire.
For the regional travel overview: Pas-De-Calais.
