On the trail of St. Jacques de Compostela and the Scheldt

Depart from the town of Cambrai, latitude 50.1706800 (N 50° 10’ 14”), longitude 3.2380270 (E 3° 14’ 17”)

• Garden of the Caves

• The start of your hike is in the green lung of the city, in the middle of the garden of the caves where you can easily park the time of your ride.

• Here you are in Crèvecoeur sur Escaut

• Located south of Cambrai on a rural area, the town is crossed by the channel of Saint Quentin (L'Escaut). Many hiking trails run through the Crèvecoeur countryside.

• Waterer of Vaucelles

• This watering place is probably a distant heritage of the Cistercian religious of Vaucelles. Enclosed in the pastures bordering the farm, it is fed by the neighboring fountain which filters the water and which is itself fed by the water of the source Saint-Bernard, through an aqueduct.

• Bantouzelle

• Village of 750 hectares, on the eastern slope of the Scheldt, 142 meters above the sea. Bant: meaning marsh, Zelle: ground dug, so BANTOUZELLE would mean "swamps against low".
• At 81 Grande Rue, there is a free permanent exhibition on the 14-18 war open the first Sunday of every month from 15h to 18h with guided tour. Open on request at the town hall on +33 3 27 78 50 24.

• Honnecourt on Scheldt

• Founded in ancient times, on the banks of the Scheldt where a large Benedictine abbey established itself from the seventh century until the Revolution, the village of Honnecourt was a long border town between France and the Germanic Empire which explains its fortifications destroyed in the 15th century.
• Hardly bruised over the centuries by fierce fighting, from the Hundred Years War to the First World War, its church, rebuilt in the 1920s, still retains some valuable vestiges of the Romanesque period.
• Native village of "Villard de Honnecourt":
• It all starts with the discovery of a notebook found in the library of Saint-Germain des Prés, currently held by the National Library, full of notes, drawings, sketches and sketches, whose interpretation and reading have fascinated a crowd of Medieval historians and architects. Thus was saved from oblivion a famous and atypical character: Villard de Honnecourt. It is believed that this artist was born in the twelfth century. A scrupulous observer, Villard traveled all over Europe. The reading and the study of this precious visionary collection inform us about the technical knowledge, the preoccupations and the architectural fads of the Gothic period: processes to draw on the stone, to aim and measure by far, attempts at solving the problem posed by the perpetual movement... but also the state of many abbeys... unique testimony reflecting the extent of knowledge of the thirteenth century, the booklet which lacks pages, scraped leaves, however continues to fascinate with their wealth, in perpetuating and carrying their educational values. Created by Jean Gimpel in 1983, the Villard de Honnecourt Association wants to make the man and the notebook better known, as well as the village of Honnecourt, in the heart of the Upper Scheldt Valley.

• End of the road... start of the towpath

• After crossing the bridge over the Scheldt (the small river along the canal on your right) and the Saint-Quentin canal, take the towpath which is directly on your right. It only remains to ride enjoying the canal and nature.

• Banteux lock
• Vinchy lock - The Streets of the Vines
• Marcoing

• In the Middle Ages, Marcoing is one of the 12 peerages of Cambresis and has a castle built by Robert of Flanders in 1099 and captured by Emperor Henry IV in 1101.
• Burned in 1158, the village still knows the throes of the Hundred Years War and the wars between Valois and Habsburgs (devastation in 1549, fire in 1635). Robert de Melun camped there in 1581 to help the Duke of Parma take Cambrai. From the 15th century, Marcoing belonged to the Luxembourg family, then to the Egmont family (from the 16th to the 17th century), to the families of Orleans, La Cattoire and Leroy de Leroideville, until the Revolution.
• Marcoing saw the camp of important French troops in September and October 1711, then in 1793 became the headquarters of the Prince of Saxe-Cobourg and the Duke of York during the invasion of France.
• Under the Empire, its face is modified with the passage of the canal of Saint-Quentin in 1810 and a railway line in 1876.
• In January 1871, the German army occupies Marcoing and blows up the bridges. The town was destroyed in November 1917 during the British offensive against Cambrai.
• After the war, Marcoing offers a good example of successful reconstruction. Unfortunately, the city suffered major explosions during the bombing of the station, May 17, 1940. The industrialization of the site started in the nineteenth century continues to be in full swing after the First World War with a brickyard, boiler, textile industries, an oil mill, a dairy... Endive culture is also developing in Marcoing after the Second World War.

• Canal bridge of Noyelles sur Escaut

• At Noyelles, the course of the Saint-Quentin canal crosses that of the Scheldt by means of a canal bridge. This layout is all the more spectacular as Noyelles is one of the few places where the canal passes over the Scheldt. These developments are carried out under the direction of the engineers of the Bridges and Pavements Antoine Nicolas Gayant and Barnabé Brisson, during the creation of the channel of Saint-Quentin.

• Lock Cantigneul - Cantaing-sur-Escaut

• Cantaing-sur-Escaut, a small village that has retained its rural character, is an old land populated already in the Gallo-Roman era. The Scheldt Valley bears witness to this and Cantaing was one of the sanctuaries with its Fanum (Gallo-Roman temple).

Episcopal conté, the Cambrésis had a noble assembly of twelve peers, including the Lord of Cantaing (feudal castle in the village center). Cantigneul says little Cantaing with its mill on the Scheldt, the canal of Saint-Quentin inaugurated in 1810 by Napoleon I and the Bois de la Folie with its castles. Cantaing was also a land of passage, encounters and battles.

• From the Middle Ages... to the terrible war of 1914-1918.

• Wood Chenu of Proville

• Silence, calm and harmony... This is what you will get a walk in the Bois Chenu. In the immediate vicinity of Cambrai, you will be able to appreciate the charm of this ecological urban park which will enable you to discover or rediscover the flora and fauna of the region. The discovery trail will take you inside the woods to the center of Proville where you will follow the banks of the Scheldt.

• Cambrai

• From the Roman Castrum in the 1st century to the present day Cambrai are 2000 years of an original and tormented history. Successively Roman Castrum (Cameracum), Frankish Kingdom, County of the Holy Roman Empire Germanic, then the Spanish Netherlands, finally French since 1677, the city has kept its 3 specificities: Carrefour city, Army town, Church city.
• It is indeed at the crossroads of great Roman roads and on the banks of the river Scheldt that the Romans establish a castrum: Cameracum. This one extends and, in 365, it is a city provided with a wall and endowed with a bishop who becomes the capital of the Nervie - when the barbarian invasions break, the Franks establish there a kingdom, soon annexed by Clovis (early 6th century). He sends Saint-Vaast, his catechist but he is the successor of it, St. Géry who will be, from 584, the true founder of the city = he establishes the episcopal seat and founds parishes and abbey. At the treaty of Verdun (843) Cambrai is attached to the Lotharingie ", then to the Holy Roman Empire Germanic.Registered by a Count - Bishop, it knows then its apogee = important religious center, strongly defended city border, place of economic exchanges with its 2 fairs, it flocks money, its agricultural and textile productions are flourishing and its cultural influence is great.In the fifteenth century announces the decline of the City while the Flemish cities under the domination of the Dukes of Burgundy rise in power.
• It remains however, in the sixteenth century, the diplomatic capital of Europe at the time = League of Vaucelles, Peace of the Ladies, Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis. (1559)
• In 1543, Charles V seized the city, now attached to the Spanish Netherlands, whose defenses he strengthened by building a powerful citadel. It is more than a century later, after the failed attempts of Louis XI and Henry IV, that Louis XIV himself takes the city.
• This will gradually adopt the "French taste" and see replace its gabled houses by classic hotels and "rows" of identical houses, while Vauban strengthens the Place Forte. The French Revolution will provoke a violent terror and the destruction of much of its magnificent religious heritage. The nineteenth century will complete the transformation of the city with the dismantling of the 4 kilometers of ramparts with its gates and towers.
• The two wars will not be left behind: the Germans will deliberately destroy a city they still consider theirs, and the Allied bombing will be very deadly. The urbanism of the city will be completely transformed. But, despite invasions and wars, Cambrai has retained a heritage of great value that will earn him, in 1992, the label "City of Art and History".
• It has kept from its past the coat of arms of the Holy Empire: the Eagle with two heads against a background of Gold, with the crown count and the lions of Hainaut, she wears since 1919 the cross of the legion of honor awarded to Cambrai, martyr city.

• Paris Gate

• In 1339, during the Hundred Years War, Cambrai suffered a siege but did not surrender to the British. However, at the end of the century, we decided to strengthen the enclosure. First edified, the current door of Paris was formerly called Gate of the Holy Sepulcher, because located near the abbey of the same name. It opens the access to the road of Saint-Quentin. On the countryside side, this Châtelet gate has a passage between two large curvilinear towers whose walls reach 3.10 m in thickness. The passage confined by two buttresses in spur is vaulted in cradle to a depth of 16.70 m and shows the location of the harrow and leaves. From the drawbridge to the spire we only have the grooves. Upstairs, we can see the town side guard room with fireplace. The apparatus consists of limestone beds arranged above a sandstone base. The battlements once dominated the ditches by sixteen meters. A three meter embankment now hides the base of the towers. The door owes its current status to the restorations of architect Verdez in 1904.

• Cathedral of Our Lady of Grace

• The church and the guest house, which houses the post office since 1911, belonged to the Abbey of the Holy Sepulcher, founded in the eleventh century. Between 1696 and 1702, under the episcopate of Fenelon, the whole is rebuilt in the classical style advocated by Louis XIV. It presents a great homogeneity. The sober decor contrasts with the exuberant Baroque façade of the Jesuit chapel facing it. The church of Saint-Sepulcher was designated as a new cathedral by Bishop Louis Belmas in 1804 after the destruction of the Gothic cathedral during the Revolution. Burned in 1859, it is restored by the architect Henri de Baralle who adds the bell tower. Among the works of art that are preserved there can be cited the trompe l'oeil paintings made in 1745 by the Antwerp artist Martin Geeraerts and the icon Our Lady of Grace, venerated at Cambrai since 1492.
• Open every day from 9h to 20h.

• Tourist Office of Cambresis - Spanish House

• Built in 1595 during the Spanish occupation, hence its name, this timber-framed house is the latest example of this type of construction widespread from the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century. The load-bearing walls are made of stone, the corbelled facade is made of wood and the gable is covered with slates. The ground floor is reserved for trade, the housing being on the floor. Today, it is the seat of the tourist office of the city Cambrai.

• Cambrai Town Hall and its jacquemarts Martin and Martine

• The Town Hall whose first construction dates back to the 14th century. The current building dating from Napoleon III and restored in the 1920s, retains a neoclassical facade.
• Since its inception, the town hall has kept its location. Formerly called "house of peace", it is already mentioned in 1184; it was rebuilt in 1364 and enlarged in 1509 and 1559. The old town hall had a medieval and Renaissance facade. It was replaced in 1786 by a neo-classical building by two Parisian architects, Jacques Denis Antoine and his partner, Jardin. The stone is not of good quality, it must be rebuilt in 1877. The architects Renaud and Guillaume take the same model but here use the colossal order encompassing the two levels of elevation. The fire of 1918 does not spare it, its facade is restored but the buildings are rebuilt. The new building is inaugurated in 1932.

• End