Photo : Papagon / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Le Cap Blanc-Nez
Cap Blanc-Nez is a cliff of chalk and marl at Escalles, in the Pas-de-Calais, about 10 km from Calais. At 134 metres high, it is the northernmost cliff in France. It forms the northern branch of the Artois anticline, and its foot preserves an ancient fossilised Quaternary shoreline, of international scientific interest.
The site shelters chalk grasslands that border the sea directly, with rare flora such as autumn gentian and sea kale. It also lies on a migration route through which millions of migratory birds pass in spring and autumn. The cliffs can collapse, which calls for caution at the foot as at the edge of the drop.
On the plateau stands an obelisk erected between 1920 and 1922 in memory of the sailors of the Dover Patrol of the First World War; Second World War blockhouses and bomb craters remain visible there. With Cap Gris-Nez the cape forms the Grand Site des Deux Caps, a label obtained in 2011, and the Conservatoire du littoral has acquired 116 hectares there since 1987.
