A holiday at the Cité des Électriciens in northern France may not sound like a glamorous getaway, but there are some genuine surprises to be discovered in the unspoiled region by the Belgian border, a short drive from Calais or Boulogne. The Louvre has established a satellite museum in Lens, while the lesser-known city of Béthune boasts fabulous art deco architecture, artisan breweries and exciting young chefs reinterpreting local recipes. The sandy beaches and dunes of the wild Côte d’Opale are never far away, but what really takes my breath away is discovering a vineyard halfway up a former slag heap, all that is left of the region’s coalmines. Fittingly, the vigneron has dubbed his crisp white wine not chardonnay but charbonnay – a pun on the French for coal, charbon.
