Naours in Northern France is a ‘mono-fame’ place, i.e. there is only one thing it is known for. I could be wrong and, like the Agra Dildo Museum and the Pisa Petting Zoo, there may be other things to see apart from the main attraction.

So Naours has probably got some groovy little cafes, pleasant shrubberies or even a nice cat… but I missed them all whilst following the signs to Le Cité Souterraine.

I think this translates as the ‘The Underground City’. Their website is only in French, so presumably they are keeping the real translation a secret from us Brits. ‘Cité’ sounds like ‘City’ to me though, but don’t blame me if you break out in boils because it really means ‘Plague Burial Site’.

Le Cité Souterraine is an extensive network of tunnels and caverns that were originally mined by the dwarfs from the Snow White fairy tale. However, this was back when there were many dwarfs and the story was known as Snow White and the Twelve Thousand Dwarfs. Sadly the population was greatly reduced in the early 1800s by an outbreak of dwarf-rot. All the female dwarfs died, leaving just a few males. With a menopausal Snow White not really up for it, the population stagnated…err, at seven.

Despite this, they weren’t all grumpy (these are the jokes folks).

naours caves in france

The term ‘City’ is a bit misleading. There are indeed a lot of tunnels, and you will be down in the chilly bowels of the earth for a good couple of hours, but don’t expect to see something the size of Rome down there. Although it’s probably got a better nightlife than Rome, click here to see how bad that is.

As it is very dark down there you get issued with a wind-up torch, which has the desired effect of winding-up your children as they fight over whose go it is next. At some point they’ll also discover the torch has a flashing feature on it. This is meant to be used in an emergency. However, you’ll find that once they’ve discovered it they’ll use it as a disco-lighting effect until the strobe flashing brings one of your little dears to the point of epileptic convulsions.

As well as the cave complex there’s also a rickety windmill, a watermill, a bouncy castle and some goats that are happy to take a bite at anything you offer them e.g. leaves, grass, plastic bags, cameras, small children that have really got on your tits etc. etc.

How we laughed.

See my other attempts at upsetting the French by clicking here.