Bordered by Flemish Baroque style buildings, its architectural balance is created by the urban structures of an alderman who enforced a rule that all buildings had to be made of brick or stone with no overhang or juts. The oldest building, the hôtel ..

This square links up with the Grand Square (Grand'Place) by the the rue de la Taillerie. Like its Grand rival, this square has real Flemish architectural balance. Bordered by shops and dominated by the belfry, it is smaller in size but more lively.

You would never have thought, that this Town Hall, with its superb Flamboyant façade, is in fact a complete copy of the former building which was completely destroyed in 1914! Its elegant 75m high bellfry, which houses a peal of 40 bells, brings you ..

«The abbey was rebuilt in 1746 by the cardinal Rohan . It has a sober and elegant syle to it. The entrance porch takes you through to a beautiful main courtyard. Losing favour after the Revolution, the Abbey shares its site with a Fine Art museum, wh..

These Fine Art collections, which explore the history of Arras, focus on Gallo-Roman archaeology, medieval sculptures (the lion of the belfry from Arras, 1554), paintings (triptychs by Bellgambe ) Flemish painters (Brueghel le jeune, Rubens) , lar..

Destroyed by German bombs as early as 1914, Arras then fell under the command of the British Expeditionary Forces. In 1916 preparations began to link up the Arras quarries where a 24,000-strong army would be stationed before launching a surprise offe..

The people of Arras have exceptional foresight, as in the 10C century they started digging. These galleries formed a real underground town.. This proved to be highly useful during the war of 1914-1918 and the English went as far as to install a tacti..

Take your time to study these Corinthian pilasters properly, as well the entrance to this former Palace of the Artois States (1710), decorated with Regency scallops.

Saint-Vaast abbey church (1833) was elevated to the status of a cathedral to replace Notre-Dame-de-la-Cité. A monumental staircase precedes the classical façade. The majestic interior is reminiscent of a Roman basilica. Columns with Corinthian capita..

This completely restored private mansion and “Maison Folie” is used to host jazz and chamber music concerts, cabaret evenings, and reading and writing workshops, all of which are held in a small room with a capacity of around a hundred people. This v..

In this Square which was formerly endowed with a guillotine, are the theatre (1784) and the Ostel des Poissonniers (1710), and there is a narrow baroque house which is sculpted with godly sailors and mermaids facing one another. The Theatre has repla..

Maximilian of Robespierre (1758-1794) was born into a family of small nobility in Arras. An advocate and judge at the episcopal court, and an avid reader of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, he was elected in 1789, representing the third state of the Artois. A ..

Different people had different ways to of curing the sickness of the passions, but the cure of the people of Angers was divine. The Virgin gave two local minstrels a Sainted Candle - a miraculous candle, some fragments of which are still kept in th..

The conservertism demonstrated in the discreet encorbellement of the windows, the blue tiled roofs, the several portes cochères which allow you to guess at the charm of this aristocratic residence. It is not surprising that there is a four wheeled ca..

Situated between the centre of town and the citadel, this area is laid out around Victor-Hugo square which was formerly the location of the cattle market.

In this huge garden at the edge of the lower town, you will find a stele on which a marquis and a man in the 20C watched a procession of the muses. The stele honours the Rosati who are not Italian architects, but members of a poet's society - Rosati ..

This, the citadel of Vauban, was nicknamed «The useless beauty» (la belle inutile) . The fact is this citadel has never really served any wothy purpose failing to protect the city from the Spanish and only ever used to look out over the townsfolk.

Many British soldiers died on the battles of Artois (1914-1918).

Aligned in the moat, plaques on the walls recall the sacrifice of resistance fighters, on the South East side of the fort