Most people who arrive in Calais are leaving it within the hour, which is the whole problem with the place. It is the closest point of France to England, thirty three kilometres across the Channel at the narrowest, and it has spent most of its recorded history being fought over or passed through rather than visited. What is actually here is a town that belonged to England for more than two centuries, one of Rodin's greatest sculptures, the best lace museum in the world, chalk cliffs that face Dover's across the water, and a twenty five metre mechanical dragon that walks along the seafront with people riding on its back.
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What Is Here
CALAIS WAS ENGLISH FOR 211 YEARS AND THAT IS NOT A FOOTNOTE. Edward III took it in 1347 after an eleven month siege, and it stayed English until 1558, when it was lost under Mary I: the last English possession in France, held longer than most of the places the English are remembered for holding, and governed as its own territory. A reader who has crossed from Dover without knowing that has missed the reason the two towns face each other the way they do.
RODIN'S BURGHERS OF CALAIS STAND OUTSIDE THE TOWN HALL AND THEY RECORD WHAT HAPPENED IN 1347. When the town finally fell, Edward demanded that six of its leading citizens come out barefoot, with ropes around their necks and the keys to the town, to be executed. They did. Rodin sculpted them as six individual men in six states of fear and resignation rather than as heroes in a group, which is why the work changed sculpture, and the cast here stands in the open at ground level where you walk around it rather than on a plinth. It is free and it is the best thing in the town.
THE TOWN HALL BELFRY IS UNESCO LISTED. The Flemish-renaissance hôtel de ville behind the Burghers was finished in the early twentieth century, and its belfry is inscribed as one of the Belfries of Belgium and France, the group of civic towers that marked municipal independence across this region.
THE TOWN WAS DESTROYED TWICE AND THE CENTRE IS A REBUILD, which the post says rather than implying an old town that is not there. Calais was shattered in 1940 and again during the siege of 1944, with the great majority of its buildings lost, so what you walk through is largely post-war reconstruction. The German blockhouse in Parc Saint-Pierre now holds the war museum, which is the honest way round: the museum is in the thing it is about.
THE LACE MUSEUM IS WORLD CLASS AND IT IS THE SURPRISE OF THE TOWN. Calais was the centre of machine-made lace from the nineteenth century, using Nottingham looms brought over by English workers, and the Cité de la Dentelle et de la Mode occupies a former lace factory with the original machines still running for demonstrations. It covers the industry, the fashion and the technology together, and it is a serious museum rather than a local collection.
THERE IS A MECHANICAL DRAGON AND IT CARRIES PASSENGERS. The Dragon de Calais, built by the company behind Nantes's machines, is around twenty five metres long, walks the seafront on rails, moves its head and wings, breathes steam and smoke, and takes riders on its back. It has been running since 2019. It is genuinely strange and it is the single most distinctive thing the town has built in modern times.
THE CLIFFS ARE OUTSIDE TOWN AND THEY ARE THE SCENERY. Cap Blanc-Nez and Cap Gris-Nez, the two headlands west along the coast, are a designated Grand Site with chalk cliffs, walking paths and the clearest view of England available from France. The third image is the beach sign in town; the beach itself is wide, sandy and lined with huts, and is where Calais spends its summer.
When to Go
May to September gives the best weather, the dragon and the beach in full operation and the cliff walks at their best. July and August are warm rather than hot, in the low twenties, and this coast is busy with French and Belgian families.
The wind is the constant and it blows in every season. This is the narrowest part of the Channel and the exposure is total, so a calm day here is a gift rather than the plan.
April and October are quieter and perfectly workable for the museums and the Burghers, with the cliffs often at their most dramatic.
November to March is grey, wet and windy, with the sea rough and crossings occasionally disrupted. The museums, the sculpture and the war museum all run, so a winter day here is a reasonable day out from either side of the water.
Getting There
By ferry from Dover, about ninety minutes, with frequent sailings: the classic approach and still the one that makes the geography make sense.
By Eurotunnel shuttle to Coquelles just outside town, which takes cars through in about thirty five minutes, or by Eurostar to Calais-Frethun, roughly an hour from London, with TGV connections to Paris and Lille.
By road, Calais is the hub of the A16 and A26 and about two and a half hours from Paris and under two from Brussels.
If you are driving to a Channel port, the FCDO has a specific instruction. It records attempts by people to enter private vehicles in order to reach the UK illegally, that camper vans are targeted while stationary or in slow traffic, and that obstacles are sometimes placed on roads to ports including the Calais port road. Keep your doors locked, keep moving where it is safe to do so, do not leave the vehicle unattended, and if it is not safe to proceed, stop and call 112.
In town, walk. The Burghers, the belfry, the lace museum, the park and the beach are all within about twenty minutes of each other on foot, and the two stations are central. The cliffs and the caps want a car or a bus.
The Calais Packing List
Wind in every month, frequent rain, a cold sea, and a lot of standing on an exposed seafront or a clifftop.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women earns its place on this coast specifically because of the wind: the Channel takes heat out of you far faster than the temperature reading suggests, and wool keeps its warmth when it is damp with sea air, drizzle or spray, which is the normal condition here. From November to March add a heavyweight merino base layer.
A Columbia Fast Trek II fleece as the mid layer across three seasons, and a Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket in every month without exception, because rain here arrives sideways and a hood that stays up in wind matters more than the rating on the fabric.
Walking shoes with grip for the cliff paths at the two caps, which are grass and chalk and are slippery wet, and for the harbour and pier, which the second image shows and which is wet underfoot.
Merino glove liners and a merino beanie from October onward, because a hat you can pull down is the most useful thing you can own on a windy seafront.
Not linked and worth packing: A WINDPROOF SCARF OR NECK COVER, which does more here than another layer underneath; SUNGLASSES, for the glare off the water on bright days; A PASSPORT, since this is an external border crossing in both directions and the checks are real; CASH IN EUROS alongside your card; AND A BAG YOU CAN CARRY ON A FERRY, because the walk from a ship to the terminal is longer than it looks.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Calais
Emergency numbers: 112 for police, ambulance and fire, free from any phone including a locked mobile, with operators who will find an English speaker. It is the single number across the whole European Union.
The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in France, and its terrorism wording is the strongest it uses: terrorists are very likely to try to carry out attacks in France, with shopping centres, entertainment venues, sporting events, transport hubs and crowded gatherings named as possible targets. The everyday risks are more specific than that sounds. Pickpocketing is organised on the Paris Metro and on trains, typically in pairs with one person distracting you, and the FCDO records SERIOUS ASSAULTS on RER lines B and D, which matters because line B is the train most visitors take from the airports. Drink spiking is named with the drugs rather than hinted at: be alert to the possible use of date rape drugs including GHB and liquid ecstasy. Strikes and demonstrations happen at short notice and can stop trains and close roads, usually peacefully. And wildfires affect the south in hot dry summers. WHAT REACHES CALAIS SPECIFICALLY IS THE SEA AND THE PORT. THE FCDO RECORDS THAT LOCAL SEA CONDITIONS CAN BE DANGEROUS EVEN FOR STRONG SWIMMERS, and that applies with force at the narrowest point of the Channel: this is the busiest shipping lane in the world, the tidal currents through the strait are severe, and swimming is for the lifeguarded and flagged section of the town beach in season rather than anywhere else along the coast. People have drowned in this water attempting small-boat crossings to England, which is the context for anything you may see from the beach or the port, and the practical point for a visitor is that this is not benign swimming water however flat it looks. ON THE CLIFFS at the two caps, the chalk is eroding and undercut and the paths run close to unfenced edges, which is Dover's hazard on the French side of the same formation: stay back from the lip and off the base. AT THE PORT, the vehicle instruction above is the FCDO's own and is why it sits in the practical section rather than here. THE NATIONAL TERRORISM ASSESSMENT IS THE STRONGEST WORDING THE FCDO USES, naming transport hubs among possible targets, which in a town that is principally a transport hub is worth holding in mind without letting it decide anything. PICKPOCKETING is the ordinary urban risk, concentrated where travellers are loaded and distracted, meaning the terminals and the station rather than the town. And STRIKES AND BLOCKADES affect ports and roads in France at short notice, which is a schedule risk worth a check on the morning of a crossing.
US State Department travel advisory: the France advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Main hospital: The Centre Hospitalier de Calais has an emergency department, the urgences, serving the town and this part of the Pas-de-Calais, so nothing here requires a transfer to Lille. Dial 15 for a medical emergency, 17 for police and 18 for fire, or 112 for anything, all free from any phone. France is in the EU, so a UK Global Health Insurance Card or an EU European Health Insurance Card gives you state-provided medically necessary care on the same terms as a resident, which means you pay the same patient share a French resident pays rather than nothing. That is not the same as free and it does not cover repatriation, so travel insurance sits on top of it. French hospitals are excellent and a pharmacie, marked by a green cross, handles minor problems without an appointment and will tell you where the duty pharmacy is out of hours. Tap water is drinkable everywhere. Dial 15 for a medical emergency or 112 for anything.
Official health authority: Sante publique France, the national public health agency. covers the national public health service and the European health card arrangements
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Paris.
Official tourism authority: Atout France, the national tourism body. covers the Hauts-de-France region, and the local office publishes the Dragon de Calais timetable, the lace museum hours and access to the two caps
Takeaways
It was English for 211 years, until 1558. That is the trip.
Rodin's Burghers are outside the town hall, free, at ground level.
The centre is a post-war rebuild. The lace museum is the surprise.
Lock the car on the port road. The instruction is the FCDO's own.
Solo women safety assessment: Calais is a straightforward place to spend a day or two alone, and it is worth separating the town from its reputation. This is a working northern French port of around 70,000 people: the centre is compact, flat and walkable, the museums and the Burghers are all central, the beach is a family one, and a woman on her own in a restaurant or on the seafront is unremarkable. There is no district a visitor needs to avoid. The areas around the ferry terminal, the tunnel and the station are the usual transport-hub mix of people arriving and leaving, where pickpocketing is the realistic risk and ordinary care with a bag is the whole answer. YOU MAY SEE PEOPLE LIVING ROUGH NEAR THE PORT AND ALONG SOME PERIPHERAL ROADS, and the honest thing to say is that they are people in a far worse position than any visitor, attempting to reach Britain, and they are not a threat to you. The FCDO's one specific instruction for this place concerns VEHICLES rather than pedestrians, and it is in the travel section above: keep doors locked on the port road, keep moving where it is safe, do not leave a vehicle unattended, and call 112 if it is not safe to proceed. THE GENUINE PHYSICAL RISKS ARE THE WATER AND THE CLIFFS. The strait has severe currents and the world's heaviest shipping, so swim only on the lifeguarded flagged beach; the chalk at Blanc-Nez and Gris-Nez is eroding and undercut with unfenced edges. France's national terrorism wording is the strongest the FCDO uses and names transport hubs. 112 REACHES EVERYTHING across the EU, 15 is the medical line, and the town has its own hospital with an emergency department.
Reading On
Calais is a crossing as much as a destination, so the posts on either side of the water belong together: the Dover packing list covers the town thirty three kilometres away whose white cliffs are the same chalk formation as the two caps here, and the London packing list the city an hour from Calais-Frethun by Eurostar. East along the French coast, the Dunkirk packing list covers the next great Channel port and the evacuation that shares its name, with the Lille packing list inland for the Flemish capital of the north and the Amiens packing list for the cathedral city south of it. West along the same shore, the Rouen packing list and the Le Havre packing list cover Normandy's river cities, and the Cherbourg packing list the other end of the Channel ferry network. Across the border, the Bruges packing list covers the Flemish town two hours away. For the country, the France travel guide for women carries the trains, the regions and the seasons in full. For why wool is the right first layer in persistent Channel wind, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
