Anzin, on the northern edge of Valenciennes, is where coal mining in northern France began on an industrial scale. In the eighteenth century, the Compagnie des mines d'Anzin became one of the largest companies in France, and its mines, workers' housing, slag heaps and buildings shaped the landscape of the region. Château Dampierre is one of the buildings linked to that history, and it is part of the UNESCO listing of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, inscribed in 2012, which preserves more than a hundred sites across a vast area: pits, headframes, miners' cités, churches, schools and the great black spoil heaps known as terrils. The big miners' strike at Anzin in 1884 helped inspire Émile Zola's novel Germinal.
Valenciennes itself is a lively town, the birthplace of the painter Antoine Watteau, with a fine art museum and a centre rebuilt after heavy damage in the two world wars. The countryside around is flat, with fields, canals and woods, and the terrils, some now covered in vegetation, rise like strange green pyramids above the plain. A few kilometres away, in the forest of Raismes-Saint-Amand-Wallers, the Trouée d'Arenberg is a long, straight stretch of rough cobbles through the trees, one of the most feared sectors of the Paris–Roubaix cycling race.
The riding in the area is mostly urban and flat, with busy roads, roundabouts and traffic lights. The roads through the forest and along the canals are quieter, with some nice stretches. If you want to try the cobbles of the Paris–Roubaix sectors, be aware that they are very rough and slippery when wet, and some are closed to motor vehicles. The weather is changeable, with frequent rain and wind.
Anzin and Valenciennes have fuel, shops and restaurants. The local cuisine is hearty: carbonnade flamande, beef stewed in beer with gingerbread, welsh, melted cheese and beer over bread and ham, and potjevleesch, a terrine of different meats in jelly. Local beers, brewed by small breweries, are excellent. Maroilles, a strong, soft cheese with an orange rind, is used in many dishes, including a tart called flamiche.