La Basilique

Lille, Flanders & the Somme


In the heart of Albert, right across the square from the basilica, this well-kept hotel has 10 neat rooms with French windows, bright bathrooms and richly patterned feature walls. The in-house restaurant specialises in cuisine du terroir (regional specialities made with quality local ingredients) such as duck breast with sour-cherry sauce (two-/three-course menus €18/22). Breakfast costs €10.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Lille, Flanders & the Somme attractions

1. La Grande Mine

2.39 MILES

Just outside the hamlet of La Boisselle, 4.5km northeast of Albert, this enormous crater looks like the site of a meteor impact. Some 100m across and 30m…

2. Fricourt German Cemetery

3 MILES

A stark reminder of the extensive loss of life on all sides of WWI, this cemetery is the burial place of 17,027 fallen German soldiers. Only 5000 of the…

3. Thiepval Memorial & Museum

3.79 MILES

Its silhouette instantly recognisable from afar, this 45m-high memorial to the missing of the Somme, 7.5km northeast of Albert, is inscribed with the…

4. Ulster Memorial Tower

4.2 MILES

The 5000 Ulstermen who perished in the Battle of the Somme are commemorated by this 21m-high Gothic-style tower, an exact replica of Helen’s Tower at…

5. Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial

4.74 MILES

This evocative memorial preserves part of the Western Front in the state it was in at fighting's end. The zigzag trench system, which still fills with mud…

6. Mémorial Sud-Africain Delville Wood

7.51 MILES

The memorial (1926) and star-shaped museum (1986), a replica of Cape Town's Castle of Good Hope, stand in the middle of Delville Wood, where in July 1916…

7. Australian Corps Memorial Park

7.83 MILES

Adorned with a large bronze ‘Rising Sun’, the insignia of the Australian Imperial Force, this memorial 6.5km northeast of Villers-Bretonneux stands on the…

8. Australian National War Memorial

10.22 MILES

During WWI, 416,809 Australians – 8% of the country's population – volunteered for overseas military service; 46,000 met their deaths on the Western Front…