Nausicaa

Nausicaa opened in 1991 and expanded in 2018 with a tank of about ten thousand cubic metres, the largest in Europe, holding a reconstruction of the open ocean off Malpelo island in the Pacific with manta rays, sharks and large schooling fish, viewed through a window twenty metres wide and five high and from a tunnel beneath. The scale is the point: the aquarium was designed to make the ocean legible as a system rather than a series of species tanks, and it is recognised by UNESCO as a centre of excellence for ocean awareness. Around fifty-eight thousand animals across sixteen hundred species are held.

What you actually see

• The Malpelo tank - ten thousand cubic metres with manta rays and sharks.
• The twenty-metre window - the viewing wall onto the main tank.
• The tunnel - a passage beneath the open-ocean exhibit.
• The species range - sixteen hundred species across the whole aquarium.

When to go

Year-round; it is entirely indoors, which makes it a wet-weather option on this coast. School holidays are extremely busy and booking a slot avoids queues.

Honest expectations

Crowds in French school holidays are heavy and the main window gets packed. Keeping large pelagic animals in captivity draws criticism. Boulogne itself has limited other draw.

Nearby

Cap Gris-Nez lies north; Le Touquet is south.