Travel options:
• self-drive by P&O Ferries, SeaFrance or Eurotunnel

Museums: The Musée Matisse
Founded by the artist himself in 1952 with a gift of 82 engravings, the museum moved to Le Cateau's Palais Fénelon in 1982. After 18 months of extensive renovations, it reopened its doors in 2002 and has rapidly become one of the leading museums in northern France. The Musée Matisse is one of those delightful provincial museums that you cannot fail to love, whether you’re a Matisse fan or not. It lacks the glamour of its Parisian counterparts such as the Louvre but the simple décor and lack of pretentiousness simply add to its charm. White stone walls and galleries flooded with natural light combine with an impressive collection of paintings, drawings and sculptures to create an experience that we found quite moving. The exhibits are arranged in a chronological order that clearly demonstrates the evolution of Matisse's style; hence, you are guided through the artist's life from the simple still lifes and landscapes of his youth, through bolder semi-abstract paintings to the huge gouaches decoupées that Matisse so favoured in his later years.

The museum is open daily except Tuesdays from 1000-1800 and your ticket is valid any day. You just turn up, bypass any queues and go in! The museum is free on the first Sunday of each month and usually quite busy; avoid these days if you can. Children under 18 are always admitted free so please tell us if this applies to anyone in your party.

Henri Matisse 1869 - 1954 
In her biography of the great artist, Hilary Spurling describes Matisse as "a man of the North". Yet he spent only the first two decades of his life here and left before undertaking any formal art training. It is therefore all the more remarkable that the Picardy landscape left such an indelible mark on the man. Indeed, this is where he made the decision to abandon law school and become an artist: "One day, I saw the Goyas in Lille. It was then that I understood that painting could be a language. I knew that I, too, could paint like this". Particularly in his early work, the subject matter reflects the people, the countryside and the villages he witnessed daily. Matisse spent much of his life alongside other artists in the cafés of the Quartier Latin in Paris and later in the relative solitude of Nice. He is best known as the leader of the Fauvist movement, a group of artists whose bright colours and bold forms shocked an art world more accustomed to the detail of Impressionism. But here were the foundations of modern art, the missing link between Manet or Cézanne and Picasso, all of whom he studied closely at different points in his life.

Our short break includes:
• return channel crossing with P&O Ferries to Calais
• crossings by SeaFrance or Eurotunnel also available (supplements apply)
• two nights’ bed and breakfast accommodation
• entrance to the Matisse Museum