Douai is a handsome old town on the river Scarpe, and its belfry is the thing to look for. The tall Gothic tower, topped with a lion, rises above the town hall and holds a carillon of bells, and it is one of the belfries of Belgium and France that UNESCO listed together. Every July the town stages a big parade of giants, huge wicker figures carried through the streets that represent Gayant, a giant from local legend, with his wife and children, a tradition that dates back centuries and which UNESCO recognises as intangible heritage. The Chartreuse museum, in a former monastery, holds paintings and sculpture from the town's long history.
The cités, the planned mining settlements of La Clochette and Notre-Dame, lie on the edge of the built-up area, near Waziers and Sin-le-Noble. They were built by the coal companies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to house miners and their families, in rows of brick houses with gardens and, in places, a school, a church and a small square. The UNESCO listing of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais mining basin in 2012 includes a number of them. Looking at the layout, you see how the company planned a whole life around the pit.
Riding here is a flat, urban sort of business. The roads are straight, the traffic is steady, and the surface is mixed, with patches of cobbles and tram-like crossing lines near the old railway. The reward is the atmosphere of brick streets with miners' gardens, the terrils, black slag heaps now green with birch, rising on the horizon, and the quiet canals. In the morning, on a clear day, the air smells of wet brick and woodsmoke.
Douai has more than forty thousand people, so you will have no trouble finding fuel and a decent meal. It is a university and legal town with a lively market, and the cafes around the main square are good for people watching. Waziers and Sin-le-Noble are close. Take a few minutes in the market square at the foot of the belfry and listen for the bells, which ring out the hour with a cheerful chime.