Condé Nast Traveller: Where was 'Les Miserables' filmed?
As a stage and screen musical, Victor Hugo’s French-revolutionary epic took on a whole new life, so it’s a bold move for the BBC to reboot the beloved ‘Les Mis’ as a costume drama. Kudos, then, to this incarnation from master adapter Andrew Davies and a cast including Dominic West, Olivia Colman and David Oyelowo: unless you really love those tunes, this six-parter knocks the singing-and-dancing one into a cocked tricorne.
For producer Chris Carey, whose past credits range from dramas Apple Tree Yard and River to Mitchell and Webb comedy The Ambassadors, the secret was an under-appreciated corner of northern France. To create their early-19th-century France, he and his team looked at usual suspects Prague and Budapest. ‘They both do Paris very well,’ says Carey, ‘but for the variety of locations that Les Misérables has we just felt Belgium and northern France, the French Ardennes and then into the Belgian Ardennes, were the most authentic we could get.’
For the series’ opening scene, a panorama of the killing fields of Waterloo, this meant the authenticity was particularly high. ‘That was filmed about 15 miles from the battle, about 40 miles south of Brussels,’ he says. ‘We just found a field with a ditch and a friendly farmer and carved it up, then added 20,000 men and 500 dead horses with the help of a bit of computer-generated stuff.’
Scenes in the southern town of Toulon, where we first meet Valjean (West) suffering in the prison gangs, were recreated in Sedan (pictured above), on the French side – besides Brussels, the series’ most-used location. Though the interiors were shot in a studio, we see the prisoners emerging from the city’s Château Fort, one of the largest medieval forts in Europe (now a hotel), and the quarry where they labour is about five miles outside the town.
On his release, Valjean is taken in by the bishop in the hill town of Digne, which was filmed in Marville (pictured above), 35 miles south-east of Sedan. This is a miraculously preserved village – ‘It’s Lark Rise to Candleford in France,’ says Carey. ‘The fountain Valjean drinks from and the church in the square, even the bishop’s garden were real. All we did was put a bit of stuff down on the ground and remove some aerials in post-production.’
Valjean’s next port of call comes in Episode 2, with Montreuil-sur-Mer. This was filmed in Limbourg (pictured above), on the eastern borders of Belgium. ‘Again, it looks exactly as it does on the tin,’ says Carey. ‘It’s great because, even though it’s not far away, it’s got a very different feel from the summery heat of Digne – we filmed in the winter, so it’s cold and greys and blues.’
Episode 3 sees another key location, the inn run by the Thénardiers (Olivia Colman and Adeel Akhtar). For this, the exterior was shot at the Château de Meez, a riding school near Yvoir, about 50 miles from Brussels, and the interiors were in the Château d’Ecaussines-Lalaing (pictured above), a grand rococo castle nearby. While this venue provided the perfect period bar area – ‘We literally walked into the room and said, “That’s great,”’ – it also gave them a space that, with some redressing, doubled as the courtroom seen at the start of the same episode.
Of course, the real star of Les Misérables is Paris, a presence from the first episode. ‘Ours is actually an amalgam of a variety of places,’ says Carey. ‘There’s Brussels, a bit of Ghent (pictured above), a lot of Sedan, a bit of Huis in Belgium, the river in Namur. We went everywhere and pieced it all together with a bit of help from CGI.’
In Brussels, the house of Gillenormand (David Bradley) and Marius (Josh O’Connor) was filmed inside antique shop Costermans on Place du Grand Sablon. For the exteriors, they moved to Rue du Peuplier near Sainte Cathérine, with the church of St Sulpice played by St Jean Baptiste au Béguinage, a 17th-century Flemish baroque construction.
Brussels is also where we see Fontine (Lily Collins) on a romantic boating trip with her beau Felix (Johnny Flynn), or at least the village of La Hulpe just to the south, where the 19th-century neo-Renaissance château (pictured above) also provided the venue for their lunch. Ghent, to the north-west, was used for a busy street scene. ‘We turned a riverside there into a Parisian marketplace and dropped Notre Dame into the background with CG – no spire, because it was built without it,’ explains Carey. ‘We really wanted Paris to feel wide and open and epic, so we’d take over bridges or quaysides, where 100 feet around the camera would have the same essential architecture, and then fill in at the back with CGI.’
For the climax of the series, at the revolutionary barricades, they were back in Sedan. ‘That was in a real street, in the middle of the night, and they let us blow it up,’ says Carey, still not quite believing it. ‘It took a phenomenal amount of arrangement – and great patience on their part not to lose faith at two in the morning when we’re firing guns and shooting cannons and the locals are complaining.’
Tempers were assuaged by extra business at the pizza takeaway – ‘I think they did very well out of the 150 extra people in town’ – but Carey’s also returning in January to give the citoyens a special screening. He’s also spreading the word about his discovery: ‘It’s an amazing town, and a really beautiful and interesting region,’ he says. ‘That whole area of northern France is so gorgeous and visitors just don’t go there enough.’
Les Miserables filming locations: where the BBC series was filmed – and how to visit
The beautiful locations featured in the new BBC adaptation might surprise you
Belgium is the real star of Les Misérables. Not a single scene from the BBC’s epic adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel was shot in Paris, and very little was filmed in France.
Dominic West, who plays Jean Valjean, and his co-stars spent six months touring Belgium’s historic towns and villages. “It’s a story on the move and of the people, so you want to film on the street as much as you possibly can, which is pretty challenging,” says producer Chris Carey.
“It’s a lot easier to shoot in a studio rather than to invade different parts of Belgium, but it was very important to our director that we were outside as much as possible.”
Brussels
Belgium’s French-speaking capital has several cameos. When Baron Pontmercy pays his father-in-law a visit in episode one, he is strolling down Rue du Peuplier in the shadow of the mighty Beguinage Church, a 17th century Baroque church in the heart of the city.
Look out for a grand arch looming over a square where a funeral procession takes place in a later episode. This arc de triomphe is in Cinquantenaire, a park dotted with museums in Brussels’ European quarter. “We needed somewhere monumental and massive for that moment. It’s more of a semi-circle actually, but come the revolution it’ll look like a square,” says Carey.
Monsieur Gillenormand’s apartment is an antiques shop called Costermans on Place du Grand Sablon 5. “We had to be extremely careful because they have a lot of very precious antiques that we’d have had to pay for if we’d broken them.”
Why go?
There’s more to Brussels than politics and bureaucracy. Admire the flamboyant Flemish guildhouses that line its Grand Place, visit the elegant home of the inventor of Art Nouveau, Victor Horta and explore the thriving contemporary art scene. Indulge in great beer, waffles, double-fried frites and Belgium’s famous chocolates.
Around Brussels
The production team spent three weeks at Enghien Castle, which doubled up as a police station, the convent and Valjean’s safehouse, among other things.
They also did some time in a former jail in Vilvoorde, a town north of the city. “It doesn’t look much from the outside, but inside there’s an 18th century prison. It’s horrible,” says Carey.
Why go?
Surprise your family by informing them you’ve spent a night in jail: The Lodge is a hotel with a spa located in part of Vilvoorde’s old prison. The rooms are stylish and spacious these days. Enghien’s beautiful landscaped gardens are open to the public and include a dahlia garden and one with over 800 varieties of roses.
Limbourg
“We spent an incredibly cold week there last February,” says Carey. “It’s a stunning place. We had to do almost nothing to it apart from take out some modern piping and electrical wires, and bring in some fake snow.
Why go?
You can choose from more than a hundred beers and tuck into a regional speciality like calf’s head at Brasserie St-Georges, an old-world bistro in the cobbled square. There’s an art gallery in the old town hall, Espace Arvo.
Ghent
Belgium’s best kept secret – the city of Ghent – stood in for Paris. In episode four, you’ll see civil unrest taking place under its bridges, although the buildings no longer have their distinctive stepped gables; the CGI team replaced them because they looked too Flemish.
Why go?
This medieval city has a 12th-century fortress with panoramic views, fantastic museums and the Holy Food Market – a chapel that’s now a temple to gastronomy.
Namur
The production crew owned a bridge for a night in the capital of Belgium’s French-speaking region, Wallonia, which is the setting for a dramatic scene involving Javert.
Namur is crowned by one of Europe’s largest fortresses, but its biggest claim to fame is being the birthplace of French fries. The story goes that the Namurois loved to eat fried fish. When the river froze during a harsh winter, they decided to cut up potato in the shape of fish and fry them instead.
Why go?
With its charming museums, snug restaurants and vintage shops, Namur’s old town is a lovely place to while away a couple of days. There are superb views from the citadel and you can take a boat trip down the River Meuse.
The French locations
Sedan
Most of the Paris scenes were filmed in Sedan, a town a few miles from the Belgian border in north-east France. “No one’s heard of Sedan, but it’s an unbelievably beautiful town with a massive old fort in the middle of it,” says Carey. “I’d really encourage people to visit.”
The fort doubled as Toulon, where Valjean serves the end of his sentence in episode one, while Sedan’s streets were transformed into the barricades in episodes five and six. “The people of Sedan were amazing. They let us caper about with hundreds of extras, shooting guns and firing cannons at all hours of the day and night.”
Why go?
This tranquil town has a colourful history thanks to its precarious location; Napoleon III and 100,000 of his troops were taken prisoner here during the Franco-Prussian War. Part of the vast fort – one of the largest in Europe – has been converted into luxury accommodation, Hotel Le Chateau Fort.
Marville
This Renaissance village stood in for Digne, where Valjean gets work hauling barrels in episode one and encounters a wise bishop. It’s only an hour’s drive from Sedan and six miles from the Belgian border.
Why go?
Marville has been voted one of France’s favourite villages. Admire the wealthy merchants’ houses from the 16th and 17th century, then stroll around their ornate tombs in its atmospheric cemetery Saint-Hilaire.
