Sains-en-Gohelle is a former coal town in the heart of the Nord-Pas de Calais mining basin, and Cité n°10 is one of its old mining estates, rows of brick houses built for miners and their families around a pithead. The basin, which stretches about 120 kilometres from the Belgian border towards the west, was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012, and the cités, the slag heaps and the headframes are its most visible remains.
Cité n°10 is a garden city, built in the early twentieth century with houses set in gardens along curving streets, a model of the paternalistic housing that mining companies provided to attract and retain workers. The houses are modest but carefully designed, with variations in style and colour, and many are still inhabited. The slag heaps around the town, the terrils, are now covered in vegetation and form a striking landscape of artificial hills, some of which can be climbed for a view over the basin.
The riding here is not about mountains or bends; it is about history and atmosphere. The roads are flat or gently rolling, through towns and villages that blend into one another, with heavy traffic at times. The real reason to come is the landscape of memory. A few kilometres south lies the ridge of Notre-Dame de Lorette, site of fierce fighting in the First World War, with the largest French military cemetery and the Ring of Memory, a striking modern memorial listing the names of nearly six hundred thousand soldiers who died in the region. The Canadian memorial at Vimy Ridge is nearby too.
Sains-en-Gohelle has fuel and shops, and Lens, a few kilometres east, is a larger town with all services and the Louvre-Lens museum, a branch of the Paris Louvre built on a former mine site. The local cuisine is hearty: carbonnade flamande, beef stewed in beer, and maroilles, a strong local cheese. The light here is often grey and soft, which suits the brick and the green slag heaps. On a quiet weekday morning, the cité is calm and the memorials are almost empty, which makes the visit more moving.