The best traffic-free bike rides around Auchy-Au-Bois

a pleasure this gravel climb. Watch out for the barrier at the bottom when starting

A very well-known place for pilgrims and a good tavern which recently reopened: LA TABLE DE ST BENOIT.

One man not so well known to us. Worth reading his life and what he means to many.

The patron saint of the marginalized, Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, was born in 1748 in the picturesque village of Amettes. He is better known as "God's Traveler." A French mendicant pilgrim, he traveled the roads of Europe, from sanctuary to sanctuary until his final stop: Rome. He was canonized in 1881. The birthplace of Saint Benedict Joseph, a small chalet, has become an important pilgrimage site in Artois, dedicated to his memory and housing his belongings.

The Église Saints-Lugle-et-Luglien is a church in Ferfay. It is dedicated to Saints Lugle and Luglien, two 7th-century Irish princes who were on a pilgrimage to Rome when they were attacked and murdered in northern France. Their bodies were thrown into a pond, but were later recovered and buried in a chapel in Hurionville. The church in Ferfay contains a 16th-century polychrome wooden reliquary containing the remains of the saints. The saints are celebrated on 23 October in the Catholic calendar.

The Sainte-Mélanie chapel, built in 1848 by Roseline d'Hinnisdael in memory of her mother and as a family burial place, was built in the park of the Château de Ferfay, on the edge of the Chaussée Brunehaut. Today it is owned by the municipality of Ferfay. During the bombings of the Second World War, the castle was completely destroyed, the chapel lost its stained glass windows. This was followed by waterproofing work. Fifty years later, the building shows serious signs of weakness: masonry, framework and roofing. The chapel is the work of the Parisian architect Pierre-Charles Dusillion (1804–1878) and is one of the rare examples of neo-Renaissance architecture of Italian inspiration in the Pas-de-Calais, perhaps soon protected as historical monuments.

The patron saint of the marginalized, Saint Benoît-Joseph Labre, was born in 1748 in the picturesque village of Amettes. He is better known as the “wanderer of God”. As a French beggar pilgrim, he traveled the roads of Europe, from shrine to shrine until his last stop: Rome. He was canonized in 1881. The birthplace of Saint Benoît-Joseph, a small chalet, has become an important place of pilgrimage in Artois, dedicated to his memory and collecting objects that belonged to him.

The Saint-Sulpice church in Amettes, a sober building from the 16th century, is in late Gothic style and has retained beautiful ribbed windows in the nave. But it owes its current imposing appearance to the extension in the 19th century (1862-1864), which made it a coherent whole with the oldest part. This extension was made necessary by the influx of many pilgrims. The village of Amettes and its church are indeed closely linked to the personality of Saint Benoît Joseph Labre, son of a farming family from the village. Thus, in the church we can find numerous testimonies of the life and death of the “Wanderer of God”, beatified in 1860 and canonized in 1881: the baptismal font on which he was baptized in 1748 or the historic altar of the church where he served mass; but also more personal memories of Benoît Joseph: objects that belonged to him and relics of this great pilgrim, poor among the poor, such as the sedan chair on which he died in Rome in 1783. The contemporary stained glass windows of the choir tell the life and expression of the spirituality of the holy pilgrim. The church also preserves elegant furniture from the 18th century, as well as, in the right chapel, bas-reliefs around the Blessed Sacrament, works by the artist Jean Lambert-Rucky.