Things to discover in France

The fortified town of Bitche is dominated by a citadel stretching out over a sandstone rock. 

L'ouvrage du Four-à-Chaux was one of the gros ouvrages or large artillery works of the French Maginot Line. Yet almost nothing of it can be seen above ground.

In 1874, a cross-border railway connected the Belgian town of Péruwelz with the French municipality of Anzin. The aim was to export coal from the northern French mining basin to Belgium.

One of the most exceptional mining complexes in French Alsace, where potassium or potash was brought to the surface, is the Carreau Rodolphe.

The French village of Remenauville had 138 inhabitants living and working in the shadow of its neo-Gothic church tower in the early 20th century. But World War I changed everything.

The Atlantic Wall, Nazi Germany's World War II defence line, stretched over 4,000 kilometres from the North Cape to the most south-westerly tip of France, namely Hendaye.

The Hartmannswillerkopf massif in the French Vosges Mountains overlooks the Alsace and was the scene of heavy fighting between the French and German armies from December 1914 onwards during the First World War.

This truncated metal headframe took miners from the French Meurchin coal mine four hundred metres underground to cut coal.

The rock castle of Lutzelhardt was partly carved out of the sandy rocks of the 400-metre-high Adelsberg at some point in the 13th century.

Monday morning, February 21, 1916. It is a quarter past seven in the morning when the German army opens fire on the forts north and east of Verdun in France.