Arras

Arras grew rich on cloth and its two linked squares, the Grand'Place and the Place des Heros, are lined with a hundred and fifty-five Flemish Baroque houses on arcades, each with a curved gable, built between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Almost all of it was destroyed in the First World War and rebuilt to the original designs afterwards. Beneath the town run chalk quarries worked since the medieval period, which New Zealand tunnellers extended in 1916 into a network housing twenty-four thousand troops before the Battle of Arras; part is open as the Carriere Wellington, with soldiers' inscriptions still on the walls.

What you actually see

• The two squares - a hundred and fifty-five arcaded Flemish Baroque houses.
• Carriere Wellington - the tunnels that hid twenty-four thousand troops.
• The soldiers' graffiti - names and drawings cut into the chalk underground.
• The belfry - the rebuilt tower climbed for a view over the squares.

When to go

April to October; the tunnels are a constant eleven degrees and need a warm layer whatever the season. The Christmas market fills the squares in December.

Honest expectations

The squares are a faithful post-war rebuild, not original fabric. The tunnel visit is guided, timed and cold, and books out. Parking on the squares limits the view on market days.

Nearby

Vimy Ridge lies north; Lens is northeast.