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Calais
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CALAIS
is less than 40km from England - the Channel's shortest crossing - and is by far the busiest French passenger port. The port (and its accompanying petrochemical works) dominates the town; in fact, there's not much else here. In the last war the British destroyed it to prevent it being used as a base for a German invasion, but the French still refer to it as "the most English town in France", an influence that began after the battle of CrA©cy in 1346, when Edward III seized it for use as a beachhead in the Hundred Years War. It remained in English hands until 1558, when its loss caused Mary Tudor famously to say: "When I am dead and opened, you shall find Calais lying in my heart." The association has been maintained by various Brits across the centuries: Lady Emma Hamilton, Lord Nelson's mistress; Oscar Wilde on his uppers; Nottingham lacemakers who set up business in the early nineteenth century; and, nowadays, nine million British travellers per year, plus another million-odd day-trippers. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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France,
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