Amiens, France. 2015 🇫🇷

Travelled: 193 kilometres from Reims to Amiens, France
Visited: Villiers-Bretonniox and Amiens.
Stayed: Amiens municipal carpark, free no services, but a nice spot. N49.90001, E2.31071

---

We depart our comfortable aire at Riems by late morning.  The weather still cold and misty, as we head north-west toward the valley of the Somme River.  We will avoid the tollway from now on, so I have set the GPS accordingly and we find ourselves on the D roads.  Before the A34 tollway the D1034 was the main highway between Riems, St Quentin and Amiens, there are some incredibly long straight stretches of bitumen running for 10-20 kilometres without a bend.  It is now however a series of round-a-bouts perhaps every 3-5 kilometres, one suspects to encourage use of the tollway.

From St Quentin the village name become familiar, Albert, Corbie and Villers Bretonneux.  We passed through here two years ago visiting the Adelaide Cemetery and Australian Memorial. We cannot pass it by without paying our respects.  We drive past the Robinvale school and head out to the memorial on the road to Corbie.  There has been significant changes since 2013, the carpark has been relocated to the side of the memorial entrance and a lovely garden and grasslands planted.  This has opened up the view down the valley toward the Somme.  We have coffee and lunch in the carpark and chat to the some Australian visitors coming and going.

---

France

---

---

France

---

It’s only another 20 kilometres to Amiens and we can see its towering Cathedral in the mist well before we reach the edge of town.  There are no official aires in Amiens, but there are a couple of spots where motorhome parking is tolerated, we find a nice spot next to a couple of other motorhomes in a small carpark across the gardens and sporting complex in the centre of Amiens.  It proved to be less than a 10 minute walk to the Cathedral.

The old city of Amiens stands on the southern banks of the Somme canal and river.  Adjacent the port of Amiens there are several smaller canals weaving in all directions.  The local tourist information indicates the Somme was a wide wetland that was reclaimed as the city expanded, the water being transferred to canals, then used to channel water to the various mills to provide power.  It’s a charming area to walk around with bridges in all directions, in fact many houses built along the canals have there own small bridge to access their homes.

Amiens Cathedral is apparently the largest in Europe, most impressive from the outside, it’s sculpture stonework finely detailed.  However we found it cold and dark inside it’s cavernous spaces.  On a sunny summer’s day, I am sure it would be more inviting.  There is little else of particular note about Amiens, other than it was market day during our visit and there’s nothing quiet as good as a French markets.  Lots of trash of course but lovely fresh fruit and vegetables, cheeses, fresh fish and meats and a lot more.  Lastly I should mention the tourist information centre in Amiens has very fast wifi.

---

---

Michael and Pam

---