The scenery • Behind the slag heaps, now grassed over – a real cultural and historic heritage – the fields and hedgerows form a delightful landscape, especially in the
Avesnois (a listed regional nature reserve). Elsewhere, the marshes around Saint-Omer and the cliffs topped with wild heathland (capes along the
côte d'Opale) have kept their identity. You can't say the "flat country" is totally flat.
Gastronomy and local produce • Beer is the usual drink of an evening (some ten traditional brewers jealously guard the secret of their specific skills), while the coffee break marks out the hours in bistrots and country inns throughout the day. But it's chicory (roasted) that is still served as a breakfast drink before a walk across the potato fields...or chicory fields, indispensable in the region. Its root is replanted and grows in the dark (this is called forcing) to produce the chicory vegetable, or endive. Maroilles cheese, which has gained renown due to a French cult film about the people from the north of France known as "Chtis", is perfect for a sandwich lunch in the fresh air.
Hiking •
Hiking is very popular throughout the plains of Flanders, in the Artois or the Thiérache, and around the marshes or in the valleys along the river Aa.
Cyclotourism
• For cycling, the region is famous for its cobbled streets (in the Paris-Roubaix cycle race) but the roads which cross the region are not all as bad as that. Come summer, you can for example "climb" easily up to the Long Buisson pass, near Bavay, which reaches up to an altitude of... 145 metres! Mont des Cats and Saint-Amand-les-Eaux also offer interesting road tours; while the new
Val Joly recreation park and tourist resort (near Avesnes-sur-Helpe) has an approved mountain bike path around the edge of the lake.
Navigable waterways • A mining and industrial basin, the Nord region is also a land of waterways, criss- crossed with nearly 700 km of canals and
navigable rivers, primarily for
professional barges, which are sometimes transformed into bed and breakfasts. Around ten harbours and forty or so water sports resorts now are now open to "freshwater sailors", especially on the canal du Lys or in the valley of Scarpe-Escaut.