| To visit France’s northernmost region is to discover a universe where sea and earth are intimately linked. In the past ten years, Nord-Pas de Calais has been transformed by the Channel Tunnel––a project accomplished in May 1994 but contemplated by Napoleon two centuries earlier. Another asset is the TGV train service from Paris to Lille, the region’s capital, a non-stop 150-mile trip that takes 59 minutes in railway cars whose comfort equals that of a first-class airliners, minus the airport delays and weather turbulence. |
