©Nohcab Crossing the Channel: exploits and legends
Crossing the Channel: from the legendary feat to the tunnel's fixed link
Facing the English Channel that bathes France and Great Britain, Calais XXL is a land of exploits and pioneers! Coquelles is the embarkation city of the Channel Tunnel, a great challenge of the end of the 20th century. In the category of legendary exploits, Blériot-Plage preserves the memory of the first aviator to have crossed the Channel. At Calais LA plage, the memory of an enormous sporting feat is recalled: the first crossing of the Channel by swimming
Coquelles, town of the Channel Tunnel
Calais XXL is the theater of Construction site of the century at the end of the 12th century. More than 000 men and women participated in the construction of the Channel Tunnel between 1987 and 1993. Next to the Coquelles Town Hall and its certain cachet, the Maison du Patrimoine de Coquelles is the place to realize the scale of this great technological and industrial feat. There, the association "Les Bâtisseurs du Tunnel" presents photos, documents and videos that bear witness to this XXL epic.
most gigantic testimony of this construction site pharaonic is the T4 Tunnel Boring Machine "Virginie". Standing proudly at the entrance to the city, this 350-tonne drilling machine is impressive. These technological monsters have drilled 3 tunnels of approximately 50 kilometers, 50 meters below the seabed!
The Tunneler Virginie
©Nohcab The technical feat of the tunnel
The entire Channel Tunnel is therefore made up of 2 railway tunnels and a service tunnel between France and Great Britain. The entrance can be seen a few hundred metres from the Tunnel Boring Machine Virginie, towards the village of Peuplingues. The Channel Tunnel has been in service for 30 years.
Its lavish inauguration took place on May 6, 1994 by President François Mitterrand and Queen Elizabeth II. The permanent link between France and Great Britain had become a reality! The realization of a project in the form of a technical feat, resurfaced at the beginning of the 1980s.
The Heritage House of Coquelles
©getlink Louis Blériot, hero of the Channel and of aviation
He is one of the glorious pioneers of aviation. Louis Blériot was the first man to cross the Channel by plane. His memory lives on… in Blériot-Plage! His legendary face is painted in XXL version on the town's water tower. Nearby, in the heart of the village, a stele commemorates his exploit of July 26, 1909. The flight took 35 minutes, a journey time identical to the Channel Tunnel shuttles between Calais XXL and Great Britain. The first aerial crossing of the Channel dates back to January 1785. Jean Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries flew from the English coast aboard a hot air balloon.
Louis Blériot Stele
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