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.

History

The idea came from Guy Lengagne, then mayor of Boulogne-sur-Mer, who wanted to reuse an old casino; oceanographers were commissioned to study it in 1982, the architect Jacques Rougerie was chosen in 1984, and in 1986 it became a national project, with the European Union paying half its 140 million francs. Built from 1987, it opened on 18 May 1991 as Nausicaá, after the Homeric princess, and an expansion in 1998 doubled its exhibition area to 4,500 square metres; in 1999 UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission named it a Centre of Excellence, and in 2007 it welcomed its ten millionth visitor. Its largest expansion, the High Seas gallery of 2018, added a tank of 10,000,000 litres, raising the aquarium's total from 4,500,000 to 17,000,000 litres (Wikipedia, Nausicaá Centre National de la Mer).

The main sights

• 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.

Good to know

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.

Key facts