Often overlooked by Brits crossing the Channel and speeding south, France's largest fishing port is a wonderful choice for a maritime-themed break. One of Europe's largest aquariums, Nausicaá (the National Sea Centre) is here, and is worth a day out, with a penguin beach, a sealion reserve and a submerged tropical forest as well as displays of local marine life.
But visitors can also observe the comings and goings at Boulogne's working port, browse its lively markets and explore the cobbled squares, the cathedral, the castle and the marina with its restaurants, bars and boutiques.
The Boulonnais area that surrounds Boulogne and its fellow Channel ferry port of Calais is fabulous for those who love the seaside, whether it's rockpooling or kite-flying kids, strolling families, or watersports enthusiasts big or small, for whom sailing, windsurfing, kite-surfing and sea-kayaking are among the offerings. You can also sample paragliding or sand-yachting and go out in a catamaran, and there are facilities for tennis, riding and mini-golf.
Boulogne's suburb of Le Portel-Plage began life as a fishing enclave and retains some of its traditional cottages as well as its unique chubby flobart boats that head out on fishing sorties then beach directly on to the sand. Bring children here to fish for prawns, watch mussel-pickers and take out a motorboat, and – if you happen to be in town on the first Sunday in July – witness the Blessing of the Sea, when locals dress up in the traditional folk costumes normally on display at the town hall.
The best views in Boulogne are from the cliff-top Parc de la Falaise, where there are ponies and sheep to pet, mini-golf, a protected wildlife site with small lakes that attract migratory birds, and the start of an old coastguards' footpath leading down from a half-buried fort to the little sheltered creek of Ningles.
On a much smaller scale is belle époque Wimereux, 3 miles (5km) north of Boulogne. This resort is known for its beach, watersports and distinctive architecture, which ranges from the blue-and-white wooden beach huts that line its elegant promenade, to the lovingly maintained Anglo-Norman villas and houses that date from its 19th-century heyday, when wealthy families from Paris and Lille built them as holiday homes. The town's 18-hole golf course has views of the white cliffs of Dover on clear days.
To find out more about this area, visit gotofrancenow.com/northern-france-boulogne
